Apple Employees at Carindale Store in Australia Fired in Photo Scandal [Updated]

[Goatllama]

Was never a fan of their policy of taking the phones back there for repair. How can apple be sure that employee are not looking through my emails?

By vetting employees more stringently. But of course, some people are deceptive enough to pass by this. Or, as someone else suggested, requiring a restore to factory settings before work is done, which is not always an option. It's definitely a tough situation.

 

[itickings]

What's up with that right? You have to pay Apple to keep the old drive, which you already have paid for.

Don't tell anyone, but there is actually this secret trick that allows you to keep the old drive for free! Just skip having your device repaired!

 

[matt3526]

"We are investigating a violation of Apple's business conduct policy at our store in Carindale, where several employees have already been terminated as a result of our findings."

So they killed them? Seems a bit excessive to me!

 

[nt5672]

Based on our investigation thus far, we have seen no evidence that customer data or photos were inappropriately transferred or that anyone was photographed by these former employees.

But Apple fired several employees anyway. Someone is lying here. But alas, these days no one cares about lies, in business or politics.

 

[atomic.flip]

But Apple fired several employees anyway. Someone is lying here. But alas, these days no one cares about lies, in business or politics.

Yes. I don't understand their statement in context either. If nothing was misused then why were the employees fired? Something is definitely up.

 

[phatspider]

Nobody minded when Zuck did it!

 

[thisisnotmyname]

How is this discussion political in nature?

It's workplace misconduct. Plain and simple. Nothing remotely political about that.

C'mon MacRumors!

see post number three. Somehow everything on MacRumors has PRSI potential these days.

 

[ohio.emt]

Yes. I don't understand their statement in context either. If nothing was misused then why were the employees fired? Something is definitely up.

Glad to see I'm not the only one confused by this update.

 

[maflynn]

How in the world, could they think that was a good idea or that it would not come back to haunt them. Sad, on so many levels.

 

[ginkobiloba]

Yes. I don't understand their statement in context either. If nothing was misused then why were the employees fired? Something is definitely up.

Maybe the info is wrong and nobody was fired ? But yeah this is confusing..

 

[mw360]

Yes. I don't understand their statement in context either. If nothing was misused then why were the employees fired? Something is definitely up.

BBC is reporting someone was caught looking through private photos. It could have been a gang of staff 'lewdly rating' the pictures without actually taking copies.

 

[ZMacintosh]

What's up with that right? You have to pay Apple to keep the old drive, which you already have paid for.

An in-warranty repair will exchange the part at no cost to you....an out-of-warranty repair will be charged to you. so if its in warranty they are exchanging that piece at no cost, to keep the piece you pay for it as you are receiving extra...make sense?

 

[miniyou64]

Not putting up a fight isn't the same as giving consent. You do know that?

Sure. They didn't consent they just all let it go. It's great when people just go with hypotheticals to end up with the conclusion they want and twist words around.

 

[CarlJ]

How in the world, could they think that was a good idea or that it would not come back to haunt them. Sad, on so many levels.

Clearly they did not do that thing that one does with a brain.

 

[LinusR]

I think it's absurd that the Apple Store asks for your password. Brought an iPhone in and when they told me they needed my passcode, I told them I'd just wait in the store and made them bring me the device every time they needed to unlock it.

Brought a MBP in for an overnight repair, and when they told me they needed an administrator password, I created a new account, deleted all of the others and then made them wait while I did a "overwrite empty space" on the drive. She looked at me with alarm, and I just said "this is what backups are for".

I've sent feedback to Apple on this, and it's the only comment I've sent directly to Tim Cook's email. Maybe this story will get some other people to do the same.

No irony here, what would you suggest to improve that policy?
I cannot think of a better way to deal with it, and bypassing the password need is obviously not an option...

 

[Analog Kid]

No irony here, what would you suggest to improve that policy?
I cannot think of a better way to deal with it, and bypassing the password need is obviously not an option...

What do they need to log in to my account for? They claimed they needed to check that it worked after replacing a battery, but they were able to netboot it to check the battery stats to begin with. If they need to check functionality, boot from an external or network drive.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Grabbed by the *****.

 

[0388631]

However you can flatten [if not too dead] a phone tablet and after its repair restore from icloud/your computer.

Is this a technical term or do you mean to physically flatten the product?

 

[HEK]

So they killed them? Seems a bit excessive to me!

No they cyborgs so just hit the off switch. The Apple cyborgs are so realistic they have perverted sexual proclivities. Could almost run for President.

 

[iMacC2D]

Removed.

 

[Analog Kid]

There are so many diagnostic tests that require access to the device in its current state, like the iOS Diagnostics that analyse statistics and usage data accumulated over the course of using the phone. Or Console logs in macOS / OS X that record crash information, some of which is stored in the root of the system and some of which is stored within the user home folder. Some Apple diagnostics look at crash logs on the internal drive and require the FileVault encryption be disabled or the password provided to mount the volume in order to access them.

That's the problem, sometimes I wouldn't be able to diagnose a fault with a machine unless they logged the system in or provided the password. If they erase the device, it also erases the evidence of the fault itself. Sometimes a customer requests an in-place OS reinstall on a FileVaulted drive.

It's within the rights of the customer to decline to allow a technician access to the machine, particularly for reasons such as those that these Apple Store employees have demonstrated. Unfortunately it also means sometimes I can't isolate the fault and the customer leaves with a machine un-fixed.

However if the fault is purely hardware and not an intermittent fault that would require access to system diagnostic logs, then sure, we can boot the machine from another drive and test that way.

That's actually preferable, because I don't want to know what's on a customers' machine. But sometimes the requested work requires that additional level of access to complete.

Thanks for filling in some details-- things always seem more sinister when they're more mysterious.

Nobody is going to search my phone for naked pictures, and they'll just have to live with the mental trauma if they find any-- no pity from me there. My bigger concerns are other personal/financial data.

If the trick is needing access to logs, maybe the answer is to have an Apple approved tool I can run that lets me chose which logs are needed and bundle them to a device that doesn't require a login? I have fewer problems running a tool provided by Cupertino, my concern is the one in a thousand employee that gets a little too entrepreneurial...

 

[gnasher729]

So people are handing Apple employees a device with pictures that they don't want seen, but then also give a password? Folks something is way wrong. First rule never give a password out - no exception. Second if Apple has a policy of asking for password - class action lawsuit here we come.

You should absolutely, absolutely never give anyone your password, and you should absolutely, absolutely never be asked for your password.

I think if Apple really needs a password to perform some repair, they can (with your permission) perform a password reset and enter a new password, and when the phone is fixed they do another password reset and you enter your old password. So they wouldn't ever know what your password is, even in that situation.
[doublepost=1476566119][/doublepost]

But Apple fired several employees anyway. Someone is lying here. But alas, these days no one cares about lies, in business or politics.

No, there were several accusations. Employees looking at customer's pictures and rating them. The update said that no pictures were _transferred_ (sent to another device) and no customer photos were taken. The remaining accusations are enough to get someone fired.
[doublepost=1476566545][/doublepost]Just saying: There was more than one person involved. You can't prevent one employee from going rogue and doing things they shouldn't do, but at some point that one employee got another employee involved - and at that time the second employee should have gone straight to his or her manager, and that manager should have stopped it right then.

So something was going on there where multiple employees undermined the business; that shouldn't happen.