Apple allegedly monitors employees' iPhones

Apple likes to advertise how important data protection is. For example, the iPhone stores a lot of information encrypted on the device - so that not even Apple itself has access. However, one employee accuses the company of not doing this for employees' smartphones.

Amar Bhakta has worked for Apple as Digital Ad Tech Operations Manager since 2020. On Monday, he filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of California alleging that Apple is accessing his employees' iPhones. According to the lawsuit, the company searches emails, photos, videos, notes and other information linked to a device managed by Apple.

Employees are entitled to an official company mobile phone. However, according to Bhakta, they are encouraged to use their private smartphone for work. This is then necessarily managed by Apple's internal software. The plaintiff claims that the employees are also sharing their personal iCloud account with the company.

According to the lawsuit, Apple's corporate policies violate California law because employees must consent to physical and electronic surveillance. In some cases, the "company premises" allegedly also include the home office. "For employees, the Apple ecosystem is not a garden with a wall," the indictment states. "It is a prison yard. A panopticon in which employees are constantly exposed to Apple's omniscient eye, both on and off duty."

Apple rejects accusations

The iPhone manufacturer denies to "The Verge" that it is breaking the law. Company spokesman Josh Rosenstock writes: "At Apple, we're focused on building the best products and services in the world, and we work to protect our teams' inventions for our customers."

Rosenstock explicitly rejects Bhakta's additional accusations that Apple is restricting the freedom of speech of its employees: "Every employee has the right to speak about their wages, working hours and working conditions. This is part of our company policy, on which all employees receive annual training. We firmly reject these allegations and consider them to be unfounded."

This is not the first time that employees have made surveillance allegations against Apple. In 2021 Jacob Preston told "The Verge" about practices similar to those described by Amar Bhakta in his lawsuit.