An employee at an Apple Store located in Bakersfield, California has been
fired after it was discovered that he send to himself an intimate photo found
on a customer’s iPhone. The story first came to light when Gloria Fuentes, the
customer is this situation posted a detailed recap of events on her Facebook page.
As Fuentes explains, she went to a nearby Apple store to get the display on
her iPhone repaired. Right before leaving her phone Fuentes began deleting a
number of sensitive photos from her phone. Her appointment at the Apple Store,
however, was rescheduled earlier by a few hours and subsequently didn’t leave
her with enough time to delete everything she wanted to.
After coming to the Apple Store, she handed her phone over to an Apple
employee who asked for her passcode twice and eventually told her that she
would have to address the problem via her carrier.
Later in the day, Fuentes was stunned when opened up her Messages app and
found a text message sent to a number she didn’t recognize. Upon opening it up,
she was suprised to discover that the Apple store employee “sent himself one of
my extremely personal pictures that I took for my boyfriend and it had my
geolocation on so he also knows where I live.”
Fuentes also told that the picture in question was taken nearly 12 months
prior and was within a library of 5,000 pictures, meaning that the Apple store
employee must have spent a lot of time browsing through her personal photos.
Fuentes then went back to the Apple store and confronted the employee about
it. He confessed that it was his number but said that “he doesn’t know how that
pic got sent.”
Fuentes doubts that this may not have been the first time the Apple employee
in question has done something like this.
Commenting on the matter to The Washington Post, the tech company said that it has
since fired the employee.
“We are grateful to the customer for bringing this deeply concerning
situation to our attention,” a spokesperson said. “Apple immediately launched
an internal investigation and determined that the employee acted far outside
the strict privacy guidelines to which we hold all Apple employees. He is no
longer associated with our company.”
According to local reports, the police are investigating the matter and
criminal charges may be forthcoming.