6 ms·

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 for

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".
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    The original complaint also seems to put the blame on Apple but I would have to think that letting people start deleting stuff in discovery is not allowed, even if you swear it's personal and irrelevant to the case.
    - renerthr 5y ago
      I'm curious about this. It's 'not allowed' explicitly by the judge? Can the employee be charged with 'evidence tampering' even if the judge didn't issue any order that explicitly prohibits the employee from deleting their files?
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        I think the concern is that the employer could be accused of destroying relevant evidence in that case. If I’ve understood the tweets and the Wikipedia article on e-discovery correctly, these photos went through the preservation phase but likely were not actually handed over to the other party since relevance is a factor before that happens.
  - endymi0n 5y ago
    I find it harmful to jump to a conclusion too early and blame the victim. Forcing someone to merge these accounts can take many forms and Apple has thousands of different teams and managers. Even if there was zero explicit or implicit force in place, the circumstances can still be non-obvious. If you get handed a MacBook, you're basically forced to work with an iCloud account. And the fact that making the mistake of using your own one in the high-pressure situation of a first day in a massive company is apparently a non-reversible decision that hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here. Trust me, Apple legal would rather not dig through your personal information to find nuggets to hand to opposing counsel during discovery. But if there's work information in your personal account, and Apple is legally compelled to go through accounts with work information as part of discovery... what's going to happen?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Why are apple employees getting subpoenaed? Is this common at Apple?
  - version_five 5y ago
    It's not clear if it was the employee in particular. It was a work device, so it's possible that devices from people on a team or involved in something were needed for some legal thing.
    - _drimzy 5y ago
      +1 It must have not been the employee in particular. Big companies get sued all the time, and then all written records on work devices, for products that got sued, becomes evidence.
  - irrational 5y ago
    Major companies are getting sued continually. It probably isn’t an individual person, but a product that a team or department worked on that is involved in the lawsuit.
    - renerthr 5y ago
      How often is 'continually'? Is there any way to estimate how many times per year is each major company sued?
      - throwaways885 5y ago
        A company like Apple probably deals with hundreds of major lawsuits per year. Must be thousands of smaller cases too.
      - irrational 5y ago
        Not that I know of. A rough guess is they receive 3 new lawsuits daily.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Having a separate account for work and private stuff should be common sense. No surprise your employer wants to access it when you used it for work related reasons. This can be as trivial as some business contacts having your mail and trying to contact Apple.
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    People just out from college might not know this yet. And others too who never were in similar situations and never had any problems with their employer or the legal system, and don't visit HN
version_five 5y ago
> This doesn't sound like company policy, and more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. Yeah it feels like something is definitely missing here. If it's some kind of legal discovery, it's no shocking that the person cannot delete "personal stuff" before they hand it over, that would basically render pointless whatever they are doing with the phone.
- res0nat0r 5y ago
  The only way there should be a legal hold on a phone like that, is if it is her work phone, which she shouldn't be having nude pics of herself on in the first place.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Personal devices could certainly be a part of discovery.
    - dheera 5y ago
      The company has no legal right to even know you have a personal device. You could just say you don't have one. Or just quit the company if they ask you to hand over a personal device.
      - mediaman 5y ago
        In the US, you may not have freedom not to participate in a legal proceeding if discovery includes items on your personal device. Even if you quit.
      - lacker 5y ago
        It's almost always the other party in the lawsuit who is subpoenaing your past communications. Your employer is being forced by the court to retrieve these; it isn't their choice. It is in fact possible for your personal communications to get subpoenaed for a lawsuit related to your work. But, the other party will need some evidence that you had a conversation on a personal device that relates to the lawsuit. They can't just subpoena something like "all communications by employees relating to terms X and Y." Usually your employer would prefer that you not hand over your personal device. Because the other party is looking for some sort of "smoking gun" where employees admit that they think some corporate behavior is bad or breaking the law. The penalties for not cooperating here are bad enough, though, that companies will generally cooperate. And the situations where it's a personal device are relatively rare, usually it's just corporate devices. Quitting the company doesn't change anything. You can still be subpoenaed after you leave the company and the court can force you to turn things over. Source: I'm not a lawyer but I have had my communications subpoenaed from my time at both Google and Facebook and I have complained to many corporate lawyers about how stupid these rules are while they politely explained to me how the system works
bdowling 5y ago
> ... more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. Exactly. OP wrote it was a "discovery thing". Discovery is a legal process for gathering evidence in a lawsuit. All relevant business records are discoverable, even if they're stored on employees' personal devices.
teakettle42 5y ago
Yeah, this is simply false. Apple doesn’t expect you to use a personal iCloud account, and is very clear about warning you about sharing /storing personal data on work systems. I have very little sympathy for someone that used a personal account containing nudes on a work device. That was a work-inappropriate choice with entirely predictable results.
- iluvcommunism 5y ago
  In this day and age, having nudes in any device connected to the cloud is irresponsible.
  - mam3 5y ago
    Unless you are fine with your nudes
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dheera 5y ago
> legal forced me to hand-over all my texts Who is "legal"? Corporate legal? They no right to your personal phone. Even if they were subpoenaed, they could only ask you to hand over data on corporate devices, not your personal one. The only people who can get your personal device are a search warrant from a court.
- beambot 5y ago
  Most of these companies offer a BYOD option where you explicitly agree to co-mingle work & personal use of your phone -- upto & including paying your cellular bills. This frequently means signing waivers permitting surveillance, installing corporate applications, surrendering the phone upon termination, and placing everything on the device at risk of subpoena. When the company is subpoenaed, they aren't going to give you the chance to delete data from "evidence". This is probably what happened here.
  - dheera 5y ago
    Right, makes sense. I'd never BYOD to work unless I had a spare throwaway device specifically for that. But as long as you maintain a separate personal device that you never touch work stuff on -- and hell, never bring it inside the office -- they shouldn't have the right to data on that.

_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".
- emodendroket 5y ago
  The original complaint also seems to put the blame on Apple but I would have to think that letting people start deleting stuff in discovery is not allowed, even if you swear it's personal and irrelevant to the case.
  - renerthr 5y ago
    I'm curious about this. It's 'not allowed' explicitly by the judge? Can the employee be charged with 'evidence tampering' even if the judge didn't issue any order that explicitly prohibits the employee from deleting their files?
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I think the concern is that the employer could be accused of destroying relevant evidence in that case. If I’ve understood the tweets and the Wikipedia article on e-discovery correctly, these photos went through the preservation phase but likely were not actually handed over to the other party since relevance is a factor before that happens.
- endymi0n 5y ago
  I find it harmful to jump to a conclusion too early and blame the victim. Forcing someone to merge these accounts can take many forms and Apple has thousands of different teams and managers. Even if there was zero explicit or implicit force in place, the circumstances can still be non-obvious. If you get handed a MacBook, you're basically forced to work with an iCloud account. And the fact that making the mistake of using your own one in the high-pressure situation of a first day in a massive company is apparently a non-reversible decision that hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here. Trust me, Apple legal would rather not dig through your personal information to find nuggets to hand to opposing counsel during discovery. But if there's work information in your personal account, and Apple is legally compelled to go through accounts with work information as part of discovery... what's going to happen?
ipaddr 5y ago
Why are apple employees getting subpoenaed? Is this common at Apple?
- version_five 5y ago
  It's not clear if it was the employee in particular. It was a work device, so it's possible that devices from people on a team or involved in something were needed for some legal thing.
  - _drimzy 5y ago
    +1 It must have not been the employee in particular. Big companies get sued all the time, and then all written records on work devices, for products that got sued, becomes evidence.
- irrational 5y ago
  Major companies are getting sued continually. It probably isn’t an individual person, but a product that a team or department worked on that is involved in the lawsuit.
  - renerthr 5y ago
    How often is 'continually'? Is there any way to estimate how many times per year is each major company sued?
    - throwaways885 5y ago
      A company like Apple probably deals with hundreds of major lawsuits per year. Must be thousands of smaller cases too.
    - irrational 5y ago
      Not that I know of. A rough guess is they receive 3 new lawsuits daily.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Having a separate account for work and private stuff should be common sense. No surprise your employer wants to access it when you used it for work related reasons. This can be as trivial as some business contacts having your mail and trying to contact Apple.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  People just out from college might not know this yet. And others too who never were in similar situations and never had any problems with their employer or the legal system, and don't visit HN

version_five 5y ago

> This doesn't sound like company policy, and more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. Yeah it feels like something is definitely missing here. If it's some kind of legal discovery, it's no shocking that the person cannot delete "personal stuff" before they hand it over, that would basically render pointless whatever they are doing with the phone.

res0nat0r 5y ago
The only way there should be a legal hold on a phone like that, is if it is her work phone, which she shouldn't be having nude pics of herself on in the first place.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Personal devices could certainly be a part of discovery.
  - dheera 5y ago
    The company has no legal right to even know you have a personal device. You could just say you don't have one. Or just quit the company if they ask you to hand over a personal device.
    - mediaman 5y ago
      In the US, you may not have freedom not to participate in a legal proceeding if discovery includes items on your personal device. Even if you quit.
    - lacker 5y ago
      It's almost always the other party in the lawsuit who is subpoenaing your past communications. Your employer is being forced by the court to retrieve these; it isn't their choice. It is in fact possible for your personal communications to get subpoenaed for a lawsuit related to your work. But, the other party will need some evidence that you had a conversation on a personal device that relates to the lawsuit. They can't just subpoena something like "all communications by employees relating to terms X and Y." Usually your employer would prefer that you not hand over your personal device. Because the other party is looking for some sort of "smoking gun" where employees admit that they think some corporate behavior is bad or breaking the law. The penalties for not cooperating here are bad enough, though, that companies will generally cooperate. And the situations where it's a personal device are relatively rare, usually it's just corporate devices. Quitting the company doesn't change anything. You can still be subpoenaed after you leave the company and the court can force you to turn things over. Source: I'm not a lawyer but I have had my communications subpoenaed from my time at both Google and Facebook and I have complained to many corporate lawyers about how stupid these rules are while they politely explained to me how the system works

bdowling 5y ago

> ... more like they were subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to hand over communications. Exactly. OP wrote it was a "discovery thing". Discovery is a legal process for gathering evidence in a lawsuit. All relevant business records are discoverable, even if they're stored on employees' personal devices.

teakettle42 5y ago

Yeah, this is simply false. Apple doesn’t expect you to use a personal iCloud account, and is very clear about warning you about sharing /storing personal data on work systems. I have very little sympathy for someone that used a personal account containing nudes on a work device. That was a work-inappropriate choice with entirely predictable results.

iluvcommunism 5y ago
In this day and age, having nudes in any device connected to the cloud is irresponsible.
- mam3 5y ago
  Unless you are fine with your nudes

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dheera 5y ago

> legal forced me to hand-over all my texts Who is "legal"? Corporate legal? They no right to your personal phone. Even if they were subpoenaed, they could only ask you to hand over data on corporate devices, not your personal one. The only people who can get your personal device are a search warrant from a court.

beambot 5y ago
Most of these companies offer a BYOD option where you explicitly agree to co-mingle work & personal use of your phone -- upto & including paying your cellular bills. This frequently means signing waivers permitting surveillance, installing corporate applications, surrendering the phone upon termination, and placing everything on the device at risk of subpoena. When the company is subpoenaed, they aren't going to give you the chance to delete data from "evidence". This is probably what happened here.
- dheera 5y ago
  Right, makes sense. I'd never BYOD to work unless I had a spare throwaway device specifically for that. But as long as you maintain a separate personal device that you never touch work stuff on -- and hell, never bring it inside the office -- they shouldn't have the right to data on that.