20 ms·

Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

669 points by luu 5y ago

kylec 5y ago
Yeah, it's really weird that the @apple.com email you get when you start isn't usable as an Apple ID. I didn't want to sign into my personal account on my work computer for a BUNCH of reasons (privacy being one, but beta software messing with my data was another) so I created a new free iCloud account. But it struck me as VERY odd that Apple would want their employees minging their work and personal data on their personal accounts.
- MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
  I assume they do this because they are uber paranoid about product leaks.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Might be a side effect of how broken their "company" managed Apple ID system. You can create managed Apple IDs at business.apple.com with such access, but the accounts are _extremely_ limited in functionality[0]. 0: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/what-are-managed-apple-ids-tes78b477c81/web#:~:text=Service%20access%20with%20Managed%20Apple%20IDs https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/what-...
- deleted 5y ago
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- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  It was a similar story at Microsoft: for a long time we couldn't reliably use @microsoft.com e-mail addresses as MSAs ("Microsoft Accounts", the then-new name for Windows Live IDs), so we were all told to create a new non-@microsoft.com address for stuff that needed an MSA - I don't remember the guidance for if we could re-use our pre-existing personal addresses or not but I know that some people did, but most people created new @outlook.com addresses. IIRC, they did iron out the problems eventually, and finally came-up with a semi-decent UX for normal (non-MSFT) people that had an Office 365 ("Organizational account") with the same e-mail address as an MSA - but I think internal MSFT accounts still have issues? My information isn't up-to-date fwiw. FWIW, I never had access to any "real" internal resources via my new @outlook.com MSA address - the only things it did have access to was things like MSDN Subscriber Downloads[1] and as a backup/recovery e-mail address for my @ms org account. [1]: Oddly enough, I retained access to the MSDN Subscriber Downloads area, including full ISOs and Product Keys for about 2 years after I left the company, I only lost access because that was when they moved everything over from "MSDN Subscriber Downloads" to "My Visual Studio" which changed everything.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    @microsoft.com accounts work fine now. But yeah, I remember it, and it was a hassle.
- azinman2 5y ago
  It’s far easier to blend. Otherwise you’re carrying multiple devices. To each their own, but you’re going to have a hard time debugging anything or living on your own new features if there’s zero personal real data in use.
deleted 5y ago
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amiga1200 5y ago
I’m slowly getting the impression that either there’s been a policy change at Apple in terms of customer privacy, or some other government pressure that’s causing all of these seemingly anti-privacy decisions to be made. I’m considering moving away from the Apple eco-system, any recommendations? I’m equally distrustful of Android (specifically Google). I feel like my only option is to compile and deploy my own version of Android (or some other OS) to a non-privacy invading phone.
- EarlKing 5y ago
  At this point you might as well buy a Pinephone. It's about as close as you can get to privacy-respecting. Just don't ask too much of it and try not to mind the price.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Well, it's only $149 (or $199 for the higher-spec model with a dock), so it's affordably priced for a phone. One way to keep expectations in check is to treat the PinePhone as an upgrade to a feature phone, until the software options are more fleshed out.
- busymom0 5y ago
  > customer privacy I agree with the point of your comment but this particular post is regarding employees and seems like this has been in place for 3 years at least (tweet mentions it). I started moving away from Apple a few months ago, much before this Apple CSAM debacle. This is a pretty big move for me because I am a developer who makes apps for both iOS and MacOS, so I pretty much need Apple software for work. No longer buying iPhones or Macs. I was planning on upgrading to the Mac Mini with M1 chip later this fall but now I plan on building a hackintosh instead. I also no longer recommend Apple devices to friends/family. I got myself a cheap android phone which I have de-googled myself. I got this Android phone ($190 USD for a very good phone - 8GB ram, 12gb space): https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Smartphone/dp/B09372DWKL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=umidigi+a9+pro&qid=1628479572&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Sma... I use Firefox for YouTube on it with the following add-ons: 1. uBlock Origin 2. Video Background Play Fix add-on This allows me to use YouTube as a background playback music player. And if needed, I use YouTube-dl to get the audio files and put them on the phone. You can check out several tutorials to de-google an android phone.
ashtonkem 5y ago
There’s no way around it, that’s suspicious as hell.
shaggyfrog 5y ago
Create a firewall between your personal and professional time. Another name for this is “setting healthy boundaries”. Always create new accounts for anything work related -- GitHub, Apple ID, whatever. Don’t install work apps on your personal phone. Don’t enrol your personal phone in corporate MDM. If they want you to use a device for work, ask them to give you one. Don’t do personal stuff on your work devices. Don’t do side project work on your work devices. Only do work for your employer on your work devices. Turn it off when you’re done work and leave it off until you start work the next day. Be very clear on all your contractual obligations related to this before you start a new job. Ask to see ahead of time all the paperwork they will ask you to sign, so there are no last-minute surprises (“oh, you want to own anything I create outside of working hours?”). Firewall yourself to protect yourself. Edit: One more: don’t use corporate WiFi with your personal devices
- harry8 5y ago
  Do apple let you have multiple accounts? Facebook don't (as I understand it, I have one less). Don't google also say you have to use your real name etc? If they do it's the stroke of a key to make it a ToS violation for employees to have any personal, privacy. Which seems to be their endgame for everyone. Their issue with facebook google etc is that it's not apple doing it as far as I can tell.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    Personally I think it's a great thing if Apple employees have to dogfood their own privacy violations! It might be the only way things start heading in the right direction. Hopefully an exec gets caught up in a CSAM hash collision fiasco.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  This sounds like advice learned the hard way. Stay well, and don't burn out!
  - pbreit 5y ago
    I doubt it. I've never heard first-hand of anyone running into any trouble that this would mitigate. Some people are just crazy overzealously fearful of employers and BigCos.
pbreit 5y ago
Can anyone confirm what any actual policies are? None of the tweets are very clear to me.
s5300 5y ago
Perhaps I haven't been paying attention enough, but it really seems like Apple is attempting a fairly large power grab recently
- BigW1lly 5y ago
  "Apple" is worth > 2 Trillion , I'd say they've got the power already..
tentakull 5y ago
Good, non compliance. Apply the same principles to vaccination status and medical privacy.
- fortuna86 5y ago
  A pro-virus take, bold move.
brailsafe 5y ago
There's nothing more satisfying than returning a completely wiped laptop to your former employer :)
Manuel_D 5y ago
This would be a serious breach of privacy if true. But reading the tweets I'm not sure what the policy really is: > During a discovery thing 3yr ago, legal forced me to hand-over all my texts. They refused to let me delete anything, even "fully personal," even when I said "by fully personal I mean nudes." They said they're in their "permanent evidence locker This doesn't sound like company policy, and more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. > Another interesting Apple tidbit: the company tells employees to link their personal iCloud accounts if they need to collab with colleagues when they start. When they leave, they're asked to hand over their laptops w/o wiping them and give managers access to work systems. I'm not sure how to parse this. Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot? Or can you just create a separate iCloud account just for work, to collaborate with coworkers? I'm a firm believer in separating work and personal accounts. I usually try not to even log into email from my work computer if I don't need to, and I always use a spare phone for work if a company requires admin access or remote management tools of any kind. That said, reading these tweets I'm not really sure if Apple is asking employees to breach this separation. I'd just create a separate Apple ID for work and use that for the "personal" account that I'm supposed to merge. That's a separation I'm still comfortable with.
- _drimzy 5y ago
  > Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot? Nope. You can create a separate iCloud account just for work. I did that during my time there. I always maintained a separate work phone, and used work icloud account for that. The folks complaining are the ones who just didn't do that, and added 'work data' on their personal account, which ofcourse they will have to hand over if subpoenaed.
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    Okay, that makes a lot more sense. To be frank, this twitter thread seems sensationalist if reality is closer to "I didn't bother to create a separate work account" rather than "Apple asked me to merge my personal account".
deleted 5y ago
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shadilay 5y ago
If you have work information on your personal devices then they own it. Never give your employer that chance. Always firewall your work self and personal self.
- tjohns 5y ago
  And vice versa as well. Do not access personal accounts from a corporate device.
otterley 5y ago
I think we should use the word “reportedly” in the title until this can be proved. Otherwise, it’s just somebody’s unsubstantiated tweet.
deleted 5y ago
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MattGaiser 5y ago
Couldnt you just create a new personal account for work?
f3d46600-b66e 5y ago
Using corporate devices for personal stuff was imo always a grey area. Some companies have lax policies, some strongly discourage this. If the device is provided by the company, there should be little expectation of privacy on such devices. I would not consider adding personal onedrive/Dropbox/etc. On a corp device, nor the email.
GauntletWizard 5y ago
Facebook is the same; Even on non-corporate devices I saw internal admin tools in my feed while on campus. Why I had access to internal admin tools when I was as far from the main site as possible is a different story.
tzs 5y ago
The same Apple that can't figure out how to let customers merge two accounts [1]? [1] Why would a customer need to merge two accounts? Because originally Apple accounts were just for iTunes, associated with your email address. Then they started cloud services like file storage, email, calendars, etc, and those accounts were tied to your Apple provided email address. Eventually they made it so that iTunes and cloud used the same accounts, but those of us who had both iTunes and cloud before that ended up with two accounts. And since your devices can only be signed into one at a time, if we were not extremely careful we ended up with some of our app and music purchases on one account, and some on the other. This is an ongoing pain in the ass. It would be much much nicer if Apple provided a way to delete one of the accounts and move all the purchases to the other, but they have not done so despite receiving numerous requests to do so. Sometimes you get lucky. It turned out that all I had on the Apple addressed account was a couple of "purchases" of free apps plus some paid for storage. It was easy just to repurchase those free apps on my original iTunes account, purchase cloud storage for that and delete the other account from my password manager so I can't ever accidentally log in to it. But many people have a lot of non-free app and music and video purchases on both, and so are stuck keeping them both active.
- fmajid 5y ago
  And people get married and divorced all the time, go figure…
dilyevsky 5y ago
What happens when you do wipe your laptop when leaving? Do they fire you?
anonuser123456 5y ago
Does Apple do this as corporate policy, or did an Apple manager ask an employee to do this? I can’t imagine the legal department endorsing this.
giantrobot 5y ago
While things may have changed in the year since I left Apple the iCloud policy was thus: Employees got a free upgrade to the higher tier of iCloud service (the 1TB of storage or whatever). There was also an iCloud@Work program rolled out a few years ago that was like a "behind the firewall" version of iCloud services. It was an approved means to share confidential company docs like shared Notes (in the Notes app) or iWork documents. What was never clear was the level of integration of personal iCloud documents (photos, iWork, etc) and the @Work ones on the back end. No one gave you a straight answer if you asked if opting in for the @Work stuff allowed Apple to riffle through your photos or personal documents in iCloud. I always assumed opting into the @Work stuff granted Apple back door access to everything in your iCloud account.
- User23 5y ago
  Backdoor access? Why would Apple conceivably need a backdoor for data you already willingly gave them? How could Apple not have frontdoor access to your iCloud?
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    Backdoor as in Apple Security is free to riffle through your shit without notice and don't need to ask for any passwords or access (the front door).
swiley 5y ago
Nope that would be a two weeks notice from me.
anothernewdude 5y ago
Gross
bhawks 5y ago
Every new college grad and intern I work with I give the same message: always separate work hardware and software from your personal life. Yes it costs money and is mildly inconvenient. Having your personal life vacuumed up into legal discovery changes that attitude quickly. Also seeing what IT might be logging out of your laptop is sobering.
kris-s 5y ago
This isn't true for me; I have a separate Apple ID for work. I was never explicitly told to use my personal one.
pommecore 5y ago
Some time ago when I hired on at Apple (I've since moved on to greener pastures) I had a tough time provisioning my corporate MacBook. Every time I tried entering my work email address I got kicked into an unfamiliar auth flow that ended up not working. After I mentioned how much trouble I was having, someone sitting near me in the office told me I needed to use a personal Apple ID to provision the device. I created a completely new consumer iCloud account and used that. I never did anything remotely "personal" on that machine, and after I left Apple I never used that iCloud account again. In fact I don't even remember my password for it. I went so far as to carry two iPhones, one personal and the other "corporate," and I only ever used my "corporate" iPhone with Apple employee apps. I never even connected my personal phone to the campus WiFi; I used wireless data for that phone the entire time I was there. That said, I don't recall ever being asked to merge my personal and work accounts. It's just that if you want to do any personal stuff with corp hardware, it's much more convenient to just use your personal Apple ID when you provision the hardware.
- deleted 5y ago
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- khazhoux 5y ago
  Seconded
- testfoobar 5y ago
  "I went so far as to carry two iPhones, one personal and the other "corporate," and I only ever used my "corporate" iPhone with Apple employee apps. I never even connected my personal phone to the campus WiFi; I used wireless data for that phone the entire time I was there." This is the way. Carry two devices. Separate personal/work devices. Never connect personal to corporate network. Never send messages between personal and work. Never give out personal device # to colleagues. Assume that everything on your work device is logged and monitored. Don't do vacation research, medical research, social media, Spotify, anything personal at all on your work device. Ever.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
hindsightbias 5y ago
“Apple R&D pressures us to have one iPhone for work & personal” I think a lot of people miss the R&D part. Clue.
deleted 5y ago
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devnull3 5y ago
It seems this person has/had some major work problems at Apple. The employees there apparently kept scores (on a white board?) to make her want to quit the job [1] [1] https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1427351298920239106 https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1427351298920239106 No matter who is in the wrong here, this is some A-grade toxic shit. This is unacceptable even for kids let alone adults.
- bdowling 5y ago
  There's a lot more. https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html Edit: I don't understand her endgame. She's not going back to work at Apple after the negative publicity she's been generating. She probably doesn't care because she's in law school and will be graduating soon. Is her goal to negotiate a generous settlement? The negative publicity reduces the value of her settlement. (Companies will pay for an NDA as part of a settlement, but only if the damaging info isn't already public.) Is she pursuing some naive, idealistic notion of justice? Or is it all to establish "cred" for her future legal career?
  - the_doctah 5y ago
    This person puts more effort into trolling their employer than I do into my actual job
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    How about trying to get Apple to fix problems like these?
  - flemhans 5y ago
    I wouldn't hire her. She just screams trouble, no matter if she's right or wrong.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Getting ready to write her woke book about bad capitalism ruining her life on a 6 figures salary and becoming a public attorney. I'm sure it's not because of the money, it's purely a political motivation. That's what she wants to do in her life. I understand it, I also take all the chances I have to bash the government, out of pure hatred.
deleted 5y ago
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throwaway81523 5y ago
Github also used to insist on that, which turned me off to them from the beginning.
lamontcg 5y ago
Wonder when we hit the point where we're just workers 24/7 and our Alexa/Siri devices are spying on what we say constantly and scoring it against a neural net which computes a terrorism risk score, with employees getting an extra unionization score which is sent to a special internal team to handle.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Don't worry about a thing! Your recordings are all protected by hashing using advanced badthink crypto. Each terrorism risk event is encrypted with a cryptographic safety voucher, which ensures a threshold of 30 badthink events need to be logged before the authorities are notified of your current location to be transported by iDrone to the Apple goodthink reeducation camp.
dvdhnt 5y ago
There is a saga going on here between Apple’s HR and a Sr. Manager [1]. I recommend the rabbit hole. The back and forth between the two parties is enough to give you a headache. 1. https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1428509942927872000?s=21 https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1428509942927872000?...
ksec 5y ago
I am surprised to hear people dont have two phones with them. One of the target market I thought iPhone Mini would excel was work phone.
Magicstatic 5y ago
This has been refuted and is simply misleading: https://twitter.com/jon_bottarini/status/1428569700859056129 https://twitter.com/jon_bottarini/status/1428569700859056129
wonderwonder 5y ago
The first tweet is sensationalist. If it was for a legal subpoena for discovery then their hands are tied, they have to deliver everything and cannot be seen to have deleted anything. It just is what it is and that is how the courts work. For the second one claiming apple requires you to use a personal account it sure just sounds like most people at apple have no idea how to properly provision a corp. account and just tell you to use a personal one as its easier. One of those things when you onboard where they tell you its not supposed to work like this but we will just do this to get you up and running and fix it later. Most of the time there is no later. I would not be surprised if many people in the heat of the moment and with a new job just say screw it, I'll fix it later. Again there is generally no later. That is on them as well as on apple.
hvocode 5y ago
I don’t get it. Why would you sign in with any personal information on a work device? Just create a free account and use it for work. I have zero sympathy for people who use personal accounts on work devices : just because they let you take it home doesn’t mean it’s not 100% work territory. This sounds less like bad corporate policy and more like naive employees who didn’t think through the importance of separating work and personal devices.
racl101 5y ago
They became the proverbial Big Brother in their commercial.
phantasilide 5y ago
Here’s my take as someone who worked there in the last two years. 1. You absolutely have the choice to make a separate iCloud account for work, you just can’t make it with an @apple.com email. 2. It’s true that you should not wipe your device when you quit. 3. We were instructed to avoid using iCloud for anything work related. They recommended turning everything iCloud related off on your work computer except for FindMy. 4. None of the claims in the tweet sound familiar to me, but Apple is a big org. My impression is that they need you to have an iCloud account for tracking the location of the device with FindMy, but technical/legal limitations prevent that from happening through your work email.
- btmiller 5y ago
  Yeah the Twitter OP is wayyyy off base here. No one compels employees to merge accounts???? What the hell is this story even. This feels like someone with an axe to grind, and external readers are none-the-wiser to reality internally at Apple. (Obviously thoughts are my own, I do not speak for the company)
  - treesprite82 5y ago
    Jacob Preston (ex-Apple Firmware Engineer), Ashley Gjøvik (Apple Senior Engineering Program Manager) and Zoë Schiffer (Verge senior reporter) in the linked Twitter thread all seem to be claiming that Apple tells employees to merge their accounts. Encouraging use of a work iPhone as a personal device to "dogfood" is also mentioned. It's a big company though, so possible that policy varies.
    - deleted 5y ago
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werber 5y ago
I personally won’t use any work app on my personal phone and vice versa. I can’t imagine being forced to merge accounts by a supervisor ever again. I’m willing to give my cell phone number for an emergency however.
Barrin92 5y ago
this sounds strange. Apple compels their workers to mix their personal and corporate accounts? If I would start to work at Apple and say, "please give me a separate account solely for work, I don't want to compromise or mix my and your data", they're going to say nope? Almost sounds not believable. Any place I've ever worked at has if anything insisted to never bring private data into corporate environments precisely for security and legal reasons.
snowwrestler 5y ago
I feel like I might be crazy but… isn’t this an issue with Apple products at work in general? I am issued a MacBook Pro and iPhone from my employer. The IT dept. configured them to connect to our corporate infrastructure: Exchange, MS365, VPN, Dropbox, Slack, printers, etc. IT did not issue me a corporate iCloud account. I can add my personal iCloud account to these devices if I want, and then I’ll get all my music, messages, etc. on them. Convenient! Or, I can use my work email to set up a new clean iCloud account and use that instead. I know from conversations that a lot of my colleagues add their personal iCloud accounts to corporate devices, especially phones. Based on the comments elsewhere in this thread, it seems the weird thing at Apple is that @apple.com email addresses can’t be used in iCloud. Which makes it a bit trickier for Apple employees to set up a new clean iCloud for work.
- norov 5y ago
  Why not set up a gmail.com account for your apple.com account? That way you still keep the clean iCloud account for work only.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Don’t add your personal iCloud account even if you want. Your goal is to not have to repurchase your music, apps, etc., but not commingle your personal photos and messages. You can do this with iCloud family child accounts. To use “your” stuff you paid for on a “work account” they ask you to set up using alternative email address, you can make the work account be a family child account. Then the work account can use purchases etc., and you control its access even if work attempts to take it.
  - snowwrestler 5y ago
    This is a fantastic idea, thanks.
arpa 5y ago
Shitty ethics and overreach aside, that's also very bad operational security, as the attack surface on the account multiplies.
squarefoot 5y ago
They seem to imply the use of work devices also for personal use; this is a risky practice with every company, don't do that. Huge privacy issues aside, it is possible that the employer could claim property or at least some leverage on your personal projects if they can demonstrate they have been worked on using the company assets during work time, which especially in times of remote working is hard to define. Use work devices only for work related activities (no personal surfing, email or social media) and do the rest on your own devices you are never going to hand over to your employer.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
I use my work Google account for personal stuff, and get away with it without any problems. Probably, the fact that I own the company helps.
legostormtroopr 5y ago
I remember this story, this was the person how accused Apple of sexism because a superior gave her mild feedback about her presentations [1]. Shes also been very vocally negative about Apple on Twitter for months, airing internal complaints via Twitter [2]. And people have been spamming her tweets on HN for a while... in an attempt to build outrage I guess? Color me real skeptical that she is telling the truth here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28066459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28066459 [2] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html
anigbrowl 5y ago
You get in your car to drive to the store, but it takes you to church instead.
saagarjha 5y ago
There's a lot of people up in arms about this–either because they are mad because Apple is forcing employees to merge their accounts, or that they think this is completely false because this is not strictly required. As always, the real truth is somewhere in the middle. Apple does not mandate that you use your personal iCloud on your work device. You can absolutely make a fresh account (from a new Gmail or something) and use that to sign in, and then throw it away once you have left. Some employees do this: it's possible, but fairly difficult. However, it is also true that many (dare I say most?) employees do sign into their work devices with personal Apple IDs. Why? Because there are several fairly strong pressures for them to do so. New hire training has natural variation, but often the person will tell you to "just sign in" to when the iCloud screen shows up on your new computer, without explaining (sometimes not even knowing) that this doesn't have to be an account you actually use, and many people do so thinking it is required to go forwards in the setup process. And Apple rewards you for linking your account: you'll get iCloud storage and access to all of Apple's apps for free. But that's not all: there's a very strong culture at Apple of "dogfooding": using the beta software for yourself to try it out and file bugs against it. Doing this effectively all but requires having an account you actually use, and for many this is the main reason why they only have one work phone rather than two phones. Plus, on Apple devices if you're not signed into an account that you share elsewhere, a lot of things will not work: your Apple Watch will not sync or unlock the device, you can't listen to your Apple Music, the iMessages your coworker sends you to pick a spot of lunch are not going to be seen. Obviously, it is always easy to tell an employee that they should trade privacy for convenience. But my point is that the culture explicitly pushes you in this direction, and Apple themselves are pretty bad about employee privacy. They've developed a full BYOD MDM solution that keeps your work data separate from your personal data, so companies can just access or delete that, but they don't actually use it internally. And you think you're being cool with your two iPhones that you bring to work? Nope, any device you bring onto the premises is subject to search, even if you have never MDMed it and only use it for personal work. So they, too, are way behind on where they should be with regards to maximizing privacy. It's regrettable that this employee found this out the hard way–but she certainly will not be the last, and I think it's entirely valid to call out Apple for not moving forwards as other companies have.
- 5y ago
alasdair_ 5y ago
Is this much different from requiring Facebook employees to use their personal Facebook account for work?
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
Fyi, she’s the same woman whose apartment complex was apparently built on toxic waste that made her sick (only her), yet noone could measure any harmful substance in her apartment, the authorities couldn’t help and tried to cover it up. [1] It seems strange that she happens to be also the victim of organized workplace harrasment at Apple. And again, the authorities (internal Employee Relations) refused to help, and tried to cover it up…? Either she’s the most unlucky person… or maybe it’s all in her head? Take a look at her website documenting her “ordeals” at Apple [2] To me, it looks like the scrapbook of a paranoid schizophrenic who meticulously collects “evidence” on their “gangstalking”… Just look at this tweet [3] where she talks about fighting Apple, Northrop Grumman (!) and the Irvine Company, and tell me with a straight face that she’s not a wacko. [1] https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apartment-was-built-on-toxic-waste/ https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart... [2] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html [3] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/uploads/1/3/7/0/137008339/published/screen-shot-2021-08-15-at-11-19-21-am.png?1629051806 https://www.ashleygjovik.com/uploads/1/3/7/0/137008339/publi...
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Apparently you can only have one bad thing happen to you otherwise anonymous people online will attack your character and call you crazy.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Even a light scan through the Apple stuff will find you things that obviously aren't just "in her head", like the "Make Ashley's Life a Living Hell" bug ticket entry that other people have mentioned still exists in Apple's system if someone with access looks it up by ID number.
deleted 5y ago
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669 points by luu 5y ago

Yeah, it's really weird that the @apple.com email you get when you start isn't usable as an Apple ID. I didn't want to sign into my personal account on my work computer for a BUNCH of reasons (privacy being one, but beta software messing with my data was another) so I created a new free iCloud account. But it struck me as VERY odd that Apple would want their employees minging their work and personal data on their personal accounts.

MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
I assume they do this because they are uber paranoid about product leaks.
judge2020 5y ago
Might be a side effect of how broken their "company" managed Apple ID system. You can create managed Apple IDs at business.apple.com with such access, but the accounts are _extremely_ limited in functionality[0]. 0: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/what-are-managed-apple-ids-tes78b477c81/web#:~:text=Service%20access%20with%20Managed%20Apple%20IDs https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/what-...
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DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
It was a similar story at Microsoft: for a long time we couldn't reliably use @microsoft.com e-mail addresses as MSAs ("Microsoft Accounts", the then-new name for Windows Live IDs), so we were all told to create a new non-@microsoft.com address for stuff that needed an MSA - I don't remember the guidance for if we could re-use our pre-existing personal addresses or not but I know that some people did, but most people created new @outlook.com addresses. IIRC, they did iron out the problems eventually, and finally came-up with a semi-decent UX for normal (non-MSFT) people that had an Office 365 ("Organizational account") with the same e-mail address as an MSA - but I think internal MSFT accounts still have issues? My information isn't up-to-date fwiw. FWIW, I never had access to any "real" internal resources via my new @outlook.com MSA address - the only things it did have access to was things like MSDN Subscriber Downloads[1] and as a backup/recovery e-mail address for my @ms org account. [1]: Oddly enough, I retained access to the MSDN Subscriber Downloads area, including full ISOs and Product Keys for about 2 years after I left the company, I only lost access because that was when they moved everything over from "MSDN Subscriber Downloads" to "My Visual Studio" which changed everything.
- int_19h 5y ago
  @microsoft.com accounts work fine now. But yeah, I remember it, and it was a hassle.
azinman2 5y ago
It’s far easier to blend. Otherwise you’re carrying multiple devices. To each their own, but you’re going to have a hard time debugging anything or living on your own new features if there’s zero personal real data in use.

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amiga1200 5y ago

I’m slowly getting the impression that either there’s been a policy change at Apple in terms of customer privacy, or some other government pressure that’s causing all of these seemingly anti-privacy decisions to be made. I’m considering moving away from the Apple eco-system, any recommendations? I’m equally distrustful of Android (specifically Google). I feel like my only option is to compile and deploy my own version of Android (or some other OS) to a non-privacy invading phone.

EarlKing 5y ago
At this point you might as well buy a Pinephone. It's about as close as you can get to privacy-respecting. Just don't ask too much of it and try not to mind the price.
- commoner 5y ago
  Well, it's only $149 (or $199 for the higher-spec model with a dock), so it's affordably priced for a phone. One way to keep expectations in check is to treat the PinePhone as an upgrade to a feature phone, until the software options are more fleshed out.
busymom0 5y ago
> customer privacy I agree with the point of your comment but this particular post is regarding employees and seems like this has been in place for 3 years at least (tweet mentions it). I started moving away from Apple a few months ago, much before this Apple CSAM debacle. This is a pretty big move for me because I am a developer who makes apps for both iOS and MacOS, so I pretty much need Apple software for work. No longer buying iPhones or Macs. I was planning on upgrading to the Mac Mini with M1 chip later this fall but now I plan on building a hackintosh instead. I also no longer recommend Apple devices to friends/family. I got myself a cheap android phone which I have de-googled myself. I got this Android phone ($190 USD for a very good phone - 8GB ram, 12gb space): https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Smartphone/dp/B09372DWKL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=umidigi+a9+pro&qid=1628479572&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Sma... I use Firefox for YouTube on it with the following add-ons: 1. uBlock Origin 2. Video Background Play Fix add-on This allows me to use YouTube as a background playback music player. And if needed, I use YouTube-dl to get the audio files and put them on the phone. You can check out several tutorials to de-google an android phone.

ashtonkem 5y ago

There’s no way around it, that’s suspicious as hell.

shaggyfrog 5y ago

Create a firewall between your personal and professional time. Another name for this is “setting healthy boundaries”. Always create new accounts for anything work related -- GitHub, Apple ID, whatever. Don’t install work apps on your personal phone. Don’t enrol your personal phone in corporate MDM. If they want you to use a device for work, ask them to give you one. Don’t do personal stuff on your work devices. Don’t do side project work on your work devices. Only do work for your employer on your work devices. Turn it off when you’re done work and leave it off until you start work the next day. Be very clear on all your contractual obligations related to this before you start a new job. Ask to see ahead of time all the paperwork they will ask you to sign, so there are no last-minute surprises (“oh, you want to own anything I create outside of working hours?”). Firewall yourself to protect yourself. Edit: One more: don’t use corporate WiFi with your personal devices

harry8 5y ago
Do apple let you have multiple accounts? Facebook don't (as I understand it, I have one less). Don't google also say you have to use your real name etc? If they do it's the stroke of a key to make it a ToS violation for employees to have any personal, privacy. Which seems to be their endgame for everyone. Their issue with facebook google etc is that it's not apple doing it as far as I can tell.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Personally I think it's a great thing if Apple employees have to dogfood their own privacy violations! It might be the only way things start heading in the right direction. Hopefully an exec gets caught up in a CSAM hash collision fiasco.
hammyhavoc 5y ago
This sounds like advice learned the hard way. Stay well, and don't burn out!
- pbreit 5y ago
  I doubt it. I've never heard first-hand of anyone running into any trouble that this would mitigate. Some people are just crazy overzealously fearful of employers and BigCos.

pbreit 5y ago

Can anyone confirm what any actual policies are? None of the tweets are very clear to me.

s5300 5y ago

Perhaps I haven't been paying attention enough, but it really seems like Apple is attempting a fairly large power grab recently

BigW1lly 5y ago
"Apple" is worth > 2 Trillion , I'd say they've got the power already..

tentakull 5y ago

Good, non compliance. Apply the same principles to vaccination status and medical privacy.

fortuna86 5y ago
A pro-virus take, bold move.

brailsafe 5y ago

There's nothing more satisfying than returning a completely wiped laptop to your former employer :)

Manuel_D 5y ago

This would be a serious breach of privacy if true. But reading the tweets I'm not sure what the policy really is: > During a discovery thing 3yr ago, legal forced me to hand-over all my texts. They refused to let me delete anything, even "fully personal," even when I said "by fully personal I mean nudes." They said they're in their "permanent evidence locker This doesn't sound like company policy, and more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. > Another interesting Apple tidbit: the company tells employees to link their personal iCloud accounts if they need to collab with colleagues when they start. When they leave, they're asked to hand over their laptops w/o wiping them and give managers access to work systems. I'm not sure how to parse this. Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot? Or can you just create a separate iCloud account just for work, to collaborate with coworkers? I'm a firm believer in separating work and personal accounts. I usually try not to even log into email from my work computer if I don't need to, and I always use a spare phone for work if a company requires admin access or remote management tools of any kind. That said, reading these tweets I'm not really sure if Apple is asking employees to breach this separation. I'd just create a separate Apple ID for work and use that for the "personal" account that I'm supposed to merge. That's a separation I'm still comfortable with.

_drimzy 5y ago
> Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot? Nope. You can create a separate iCloud account just for work. I did that during my time there. I always maintained a separate work phone, and used work icloud account for that. The folks complaining are the ones who just didn't do that, and added 'work data' on their personal account, which ofcourse they will have to hand over if subpoenaed.
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Okay, that makes a lot more sense. To be frank, this twitter thread seems sensationalist if reality is closer to "I didn't bother to create a separate work account" rather than "Apple asked me to merge my personal account".

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shadilay 5y ago

If you have work information on your personal devices then they own it. Never give your employer that chance. Always firewall your work self and personal self.

tjohns 5y ago
And vice versa as well. Do not access personal accounts from a corporate device.

otterley 5y ago

I think we should use the word “reportedly” in the title until this can be proved. Otherwise, it’s just somebody’s unsubstantiated tweet.

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MattGaiser 5y ago

Couldnt you just create a new personal account for work?

f3d46600-b66e 5y ago

Using corporate devices for personal stuff was imo always a grey area. Some companies have lax policies, some strongly discourage this. If the device is provided by the company, there should be little expectation of privacy on such devices. I would not consider adding personal onedrive/Dropbox/etc. On a corp device, nor the email.

GauntletWizard 5y ago

Facebook is the same; Even on non-corporate devices I saw internal admin tools in my feed while on campus. Why I had access to internal admin tools when I was as far from the main site as possible is a different story.

tzs 5y ago

The same Apple that can't figure out how to let customers merge two accounts [1]? [1] Why would a customer need to merge two accounts? Because originally Apple accounts were just for iTunes, associated with your email address. Then they started cloud services like file storage, email, calendars, etc, and those accounts were tied to your Apple provided email address. Eventually they made it so that iTunes and cloud used the same accounts, but those of us who had both iTunes and cloud before that ended up with two accounts. And since your devices can only be signed into one at a time, if we were not extremely careful we ended up with some of our app and music purchases on one account, and some on the other. This is an ongoing pain in the ass. It would be much much nicer if Apple provided a way to delete one of the accounts and move all the purchases to the other, but they have not done so despite receiving numerous requests to do so. Sometimes you get lucky. It turned out that all I had on the Apple addressed account was a couple of "purchases" of free apps plus some paid for storage. It was easy just to repurchase those free apps on my original iTunes account, purchase cloud storage for that and delete the other account from my password manager so I can't ever accidentally log in to it. But many people have a lot of non-free app and music and video purchases on both, and so are stuck keeping them both active.

fmajid 5y ago
And people get married and divorced all the time, go figure…

dilyevsky 5y ago

What happens when you do wipe your laptop when leaving? Do they fire you?

anonuser123456 5y ago

Does Apple do this as corporate policy, or did an Apple manager ask an employee to do this? I can’t imagine the legal department endorsing this.

giantrobot 5y ago

While things may have changed in the year since I left Apple the iCloud policy was thus: Employees got a free upgrade to the higher tier of iCloud service (the 1TB of storage or whatever). There was also an iCloud@Work program rolled out a few years ago that was like a "behind the firewall" version of iCloud services. It was an approved means to share confidential company docs like shared Notes (in the Notes app) or iWork documents. What was never clear was the level of integration of personal iCloud documents (photos, iWork, etc) and the @Work ones on the back end. No one gave you a straight answer if you asked if opting in for the @Work stuff allowed Apple to riffle through your photos or personal documents in iCloud. I always assumed opting into the @Work stuff granted Apple back door access to everything in your iCloud account.

User23 5y ago
Backdoor access? Why would Apple conceivably need a backdoor for data you already willingly gave them? How could Apple not have frontdoor access to your iCloud?
- giantrobot 5y ago
  Backdoor as in Apple Security is free to riffle through your shit without notice and don't need to ask for any passwords or access (the front door).

swiley 5y ago

Nope that would be a two weeks notice from me.

anothernewdude 5y ago

Gross

bhawks 5y ago

Every new college grad and intern I work with I give the same message: always separate work hardware and software from your personal life. Yes it costs money and is mildly inconvenient. Having your personal life vacuumed up into legal discovery changes that attitude quickly. Also seeing what IT might be logging out of your laptop is sobering.

kris-s 5y ago

This isn't true for me; I have a separate Apple ID for work. I was never explicitly told to use my personal one.

pommecore 5y ago

Some time ago when I hired on at Apple (I've since moved on to greener pastures) I had a tough time provisioning my corporate MacBook. Every time I tried entering my work email address I got kicked into an unfamiliar auth flow that ended up not working. After I mentioned how much trouble I was having, someone sitting near me in the office told me I needed to use a personal Apple ID to provision the device. I created a completely new consumer iCloud account and used that. I never did anything remotely "personal" on that machine, and after I left Apple I never used that iCloud account again. In fact I don't even remember my password for it. I went so far as to carry two iPhones, one personal and the other "corporate," and I only ever used my "corporate" iPhone with Apple employee apps. I never even connected my personal phone to the campus WiFi; I used wireless data for that phone the entire time I was there. That said, I don't recall ever being asked to merge my personal and work accounts. It's just that if you want to do any personal stuff with corp hardware, it's much more convenient to just use your personal Apple ID when you provision the hardware.

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khazhoux 5y ago
Seconded
testfoobar 5y ago
"I went so far as to carry two iPhones, one personal and the other "corporate," and I only ever used my "corporate" iPhone with Apple employee apps. I never even connected my personal phone to the campus WiFi; I used wireless data for that phone the entire time I was there." This is the way. Carry two devices. Separate personal/work devices. Never connect personal to corporate network. Never send messages between personal and work. Never give out personal device # to colleagues. Assume that everything on your work device is logged and monitored. Don't do vacation research, medical research, social media, Spotify, anything personal at all on your work device. Ever.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago

hindsightbias 5y ago

“Apple R&D pressures us to have one iPhone for work & personal” I think a lot of people miss the R&D part. Clue.

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devnull3 5y ago

It seems this person has/had some major work problems at Apple. The employees there apparently kept scores (on a white board?) to make her want to quit the job [1] [1] https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1427351298920239106 https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1427351298920239106 No matter who is in the wrong here, this is some A-grade toxic shit. This is unacceptable even for kids let alone adults.

bdowling 5y ago
There's a lot more. https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html Edit: I don't understand her endgame. She's not going back to work at Apple after the negative publicity she's been generating. She probably doesn't care because she's in law school and will be graduating soon. Is her goal to negotiate a generous settlement? The negative publicity reduces the value of her settlement. (Companies will pay for an NDA as part of a settlement, but only if the damaging info isn't already public.) Is she pursuing some naive, idealistic notion of justice? Or is it all to establish "cred" for her future legal career?
- the_doctah 5y ago
  This person puts more effort into trolling their employer than I do into my actual job
- saagarjha 5y ago
  How about trying to get Apple to fix problems like these?
- flemhans 5y ago
  I wouldn't hire her. She just screams trouble, no matter if she's right or wrong.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Getting ready to write her woke book about bad capitalism ruining her life on a 6 figures salary and becoming a public attorney. I'm sure it's not because of the money, it's purely a political motivation. That's what she wants to do in her life. I understand it, I also take all the chances I have to bash the government, out of pure hatred.

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throwaway81523 5y ago

Github also used to insist on that, which turned me off to them from the beginning.

lamontcg 5y ago

Wonder when we hit the point where we're just workers 24/7 and our Alexa/Siri devices are spying on what we say constantly and scoring it against a neural net which computes a terrorism risk score, with employees getting an extra unionization score which is sent to a special internal team to handle.

brokenmachine 5y ago
Don't worry about a thing! Your recordings are all protected by hashing using advanced badthink crypto. Each terrorism risk event is encrypted with a cryptographic safety voucher, which ensures a threshold of 30 badthink events need to be logged before the authorities are notified of your current location to be transported by iDrone to the Apple goodthink reeducation camp.

dvdhnt 5y ago

There is a saga going on here between Apple’s HR and a Sr. Manager [1]. I recommend the rabbit hole. The back and forth between the two parties is enough to give you a headache. 1. https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1428509942927872000?s=21 https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1428509942927872000?...

ksec 5y ago

I am surprised to hear people dont have two phones with them. One of the target market I thought iPhone Mini would excel was work phone.

Magicstatic 5y ago

This has been refuted and is simply misleading: https://twitter.com/jon_bottarini/status/1428569700859056129 https://twitter.com/jon_bottarini/status/1428569700859056129

wonderwonder 5y ago

The first tweet is sensationalist. If it was for a legal subpoena for discovery then their hands are tied, they have to deliver everything and cannot be seen to have deleted anything. It just is what it is and that is how the courts work. For the second one claiming apple requires you to use a personal account it sure just sounds like most people at apple have no idea how to properly provision a corp. account and just tell you to use a personal one as its easier. One of those things when you onboard where they tell you its not supposed to work like this but we will just do this to get you up and running and fix it later. Most of the time there is no later. I would not be surprised if many people in the heat of the moment and with a new job just say screw it, I'll fix it later. Again there is generally no later. That is on them as well as on apple.

hvocode 5y ago

I don’t get it. Why would you sign in with any personal information on a work device? Just create a free account and use it for work. I have zero sympathy for people who use personal accounts on work devices : just because they let you take it home doesn’t mean it’s not 100% work territory. This sounds less like bad corporate policy and more like naive employees who didn’t think through the importance of separating work and personal devices.

racl101 5y ago

They became the proverbial Big Brother in their commercial.

phantasilide 5y ago

Here’s my take as someone who worked there in the last two years. 1. You absolutely have the choice to make a separate iCloud account for work, you just can’t make it with an @apple.com email. 2. It’s true that you should not wipe your device when you quit. 3. We were instructed to avoid using iCloud for anything work related. They recommended turning everything iCloud related off on your work computer except for FindMy. 4. None of the claims in the tweet sound familiar to me, but Apple is a big org. My impression is that they need you to have an iCloud account for tracking the location of the device with FindMy, but technical/legal limitations prevent that from happening through your work email.

btmiller 5y ago
Yeah the Twitter OP is wayyyy off base here. No one compels employees to merge accounts???? What the hell is this story even. This feels like someone with an axe to grind, and external readers are none-the-wiser to reality internally at Apple. (Obviously thoughts are my own, I do not speak for the company)
- treesprite82 5y ago
  Jacob Preston (ex-Apple Firmware Engineer), Ashley Gjøvik (Apple Senior Engineering Program Manager) and Zoë Schiffer (Verge senior reporter) in the linked Twitter thread all seem to be claiming that Apple tells employees to merge their accounts. Encouraging use of a work iPhone as a personal device to "dogfood" is also mentioned. It's a big company though, so possible that policy varies.
  - deleted 5y ago
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werber 5y ago

I personally won’t use any work app on my personal phone and vice versa. I can’t imagine being forced to merge accounts by a supervisor ever again. I’m willing to give my cell phone number for an emergency however.

Barrin92 5y ago

this sounds strange. Apple compels their workers to mix their personal and corporate accounts? If I would start to work at Apple and say, "please give me a separate account solely for work, I don't want to compromise or mix my and your data", they're going to say nope? Almost sounds not believable. Any place I've ever worked at has if anything insisted to never bring private data into corporate environments precisely for security and legal reasons.

snowwrestler 5y ago

I feel like I might be crazy but… isn’t this an issue with Apple products at work in general? I am issued a MacBook Pro and iPhone from my employer. The IT dept. configured them to connect to our corporate infrastructure: Exchange, MS365, VPN, Dropbox, Slack, printers, etc. IT did not issue me a corporate iCloud account. I can add my personal iCloud account to these devices if I want, and then I’ll get all my music, messages, etc. on them. Convenient! Or, I can use my work email to set up a new clean iCloud account and use that instead. I know from conversations that a lot of my colleagues add their personal iCloud accounts to corporate devices, especially phones. Based on the comments elsewhere in this thread, it seems the weird thing at Apple is that @apple.com email addresses can’t be used in iCloud. Which makes it a bit trickier for Apple employees to set up a new clean iCloud for work.

norov 5y ago
Why not set up a gmail.com account for your apple.com account? That way you still keep the clean iCloud account for work only.
Terretta 5y ago
Don’t add your personal iCloud account even if you want. Your goal is to not have to repurchase your music, apps, etc., but not commingle your personal photos and messages. You can do this with iCloud family child accounts. To use “your” stuff you paid for on a “work account” they ask you to set up using alternative email address, you can make the work account be a family child account. Then the work account can use purchases etc., and you control its access even if work attempts to take it.
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  This is a fantastic idea, thanks.

arpa 5y ago

Shitty ethics and overreach aside, that's also very bad operational security, as the attack surface on the account multiplies.

squarefoot 5y ago

They seem to imply the use of work devices also for personal use; this is a risky practice with every company, don't do that. Huge privacy issues aside, it is possible that the employer could claim property or at least some leverage on your personal projects if they can demonstrate they have been worked on using the company assets during work time, which especially in times of remote working is hard to define. Use work devices only for work related activities (no personal surfing, email or social media) and do the rest on your own devices you are never going to hand over to your employer.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

I use my work Google account for personal stuff, and get away with it without any problems. Probably, the fact that I own the company helps.

legostormtroopr 5y ago

I remember this story, this was the person how accused Apple of sexism because a superior gave her mild feedback about her presentations [1]. Shes also been very vocally negative about Apple on Twitter for months, airing internal complaints via Twitter [2]. And people have been spamming her tweets on HN for a while... in an attempt to build outrage I guess? Color me real skeptical that she is telling the truth here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28066459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28066459 [2] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html

anigbrowl 5y ago

You get in your car to drive to the store, but it takes you to church instead.

saagarjha 5y ago

There's a lot of people up in arms about this–either because they are mad because Apple is forcing employees to merge their accounts, or that they think this is completely false because this is not strictly required. As always, the real truth is somewhere in the middle. Apple does not mandate that you use your personal iCloud on your work device. You can absolutely make a fresh account (from a new Gmail or something) and use that to sign in, and then throw it away once you have left. Some employees do this: it's possible, but fairly difficult. However, it is also true that many (dare I say most?) employees do sign into their work devices with personal Apple IDs. Why? Because there are several fairly strong pressures for them to do so. New hire training has natural variation, but often the person will tell you to "just sign in" to when the iCloud screen shows up on your new computer, without explaining (sometimes not even knowing) that this doesn't have to be an account you actually use, and many people do so thinking it is required to go forwards in the setup process. And Apple rewards you for linking your account: you'll get iCloud storage and access to all of Apple's apps for free. But that's not all: there's a very strong culture at Apple of "dogfooding": using the beta software for yourself to try it out and file bugs against it. Doing this effectively all but requires having an account you actually use, and for many this is the main reason why they only have one work phone rather than two phones. Plus, on Apple devices if you're not signed into an account that you share elsewhere, a lot of things will not work: your Apple Watch will not sync or unlock the device, you can't listen to your Apple Music, the iMessages your coworker sends you to pick a spot of lunch are not going to be seen. Obviously, it is always easy to tell an employee that they should trade privacy for convenience. But my point is that the culture explicitly pushes you in this direction, and Apple themselves are pretty bad about employee privacy. They've developed a full BYOD MDM solution that keeps your work data separate from your personal data, so companies can just access or delete that, but they don't actually use it internally. And you think you're being cool with your two iPhones that you bring to work? Nope, any device you bring onto the premises is subject to search, even if you have never MDMed it and only use it for personal work. So they, too, are way behind on where they should be with regards to maximizing privacy. It's regrettable that this employee found this out the hard way–but she certainly will not be the last, and I think it's entirely valid to call out Apple for not moving forwards as other companies have.

5y ago

alasdair_ 5y ago

Is this much different from requiring Facebook employees to use their personal Facebook account for work?

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

Fyi, she’s the same woman whose apartment complex was apparently built on toxic waste that made her sick (only her), yet noone could measure any harmful substance in her apartment, the authorities couldn’t help and tried to cover it up. [1] It seems strange that she happens to be also the victim of organized workplace harrasment at Apple. And again, the authorities (internal Employee Relations) refused to help, and tried to cover it up…? Either she’s the most unlucky person… or maybe it’s all in her head? Take a look at her website documenting her “ordeals” at Apple [2] To me, it looks like the scrapbook of a paranoid schizophrenic who meticulously collects “evidence” on their “gangstalking”… Just look at this tweet [3] where she talks about fighting Apple, Northrop Grumman (!) and the Irvine Company, and tell me with a straight face that she’s not a wacko. [1] https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apartment-was-built-on-toxic-waste/ https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart... [2] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html [3] https://www.ashleygjovik.com/uploads/1/3/7/0/137008339/published/screen-shot-2021-08-15-at-11-19-21-am.png?1629051806 https://www.ashleygjovik.com/uploads/1/3/7/0/137008339/publi...

heavyset_go 5y ago
Apparently you can only have one bad thing happen to you otherwise anonymous people online will attack your character and call you crazy.
crooked-v 5y ago
Even a light scan through the Apple stuff will find you things that obviously aren't just "in her head", like the "Make Ashley's Life a Living Hell" bug ticket entry that other people have mentioned still exists in Apple's system if someone with access looks it up by ID number.

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