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>Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies, but not only do they choose to do so they also make sure the information is wrong

>Apple does not have to share their database with these third party companies, but not only do they choose to do so they also make sure the information is wrong. Apple is, essentially, being unethical on two levels By giving out wrong personal information, the argument could be made that they are protecting privacy. I do not believe saying "associate" is wrong, though. It's a term that is commonly used by HR to refer generically to anyone who works for a company. If you haven't encountered it, it may feel foreign to you, especially since Apple is a retail company and you may be conflating it with "retail associate." That's not what it means though. "Employee" is a term fraught with legal and other liability in it's use (think Uber drivers - are they employees or contractors?). HR departments will refer to everybody as “associates” to mitigate risk. If Apple wanted to confirm employment, but not divulge titles, they could say associate. Similarly, Starbucks uses "partners." Do you really think a barista is a part-owner in Starbucks and that's why they're called a partner?

dsr_ 5y ago
If they wanted to protect privacy, they would only have two responses: "We confirm that this person worked for Apple, ending on [date]. By policy, we don't discuss any further details." "We do not have records that this person worked for Apple."
- hammock 5y ago
  That is essentially what wiping title record with "associate" does. It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee.
  - BoiledCabbage 5y ago
    No it's clearly not. It's very clearly implying they had a job with the title "associate".
    - awill 5y ago
      Exactly. No information is better than inaccurate information.
    - adrusi 5y ago
      No it doesn't. It clearly could mean that, but it literally just means the person has associated with the company. I don't know why they'd use language that could create that confusion, but it's not straightforward dishonesty.
      - ant6n 5y ago
        It could mean that, but not clearly, and it really doesn't mean that.
        dev_tty01 5y ago
        Setting aside whether it is a good practice or not, if all of these agencies know that Apple does this, then it becomes a de facto meangingless term. If this has been an ongoing practice for a while and an agency is not aware of it, then it is a bad agency to work with.
        BoiledCabbage 5y ago
        So your answer is "It's ok to be misleading. And because you don't know you're being mislead it's your fault"? Yeah I have a very different opinion of that situation.
        whynaut 5y ago
        They literally pre-empted this response at the beginning of the comment
  - nwallin 5y ago
    > It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee. It is not. It implies an entry level/unskilled/probationary position. You would call a person who works tier 1 support an associate, or works the cash register in an Apple store, or a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 2 months. You would not call a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 18 months an associate. If you've got a stack of applicants and one of them comes up with some bullshit like their previous employer claims their job title was Associate and they claim their actual job title was Software Engineer, that means I either have to do legwork to figure out what's actually happening, is this person lying about their experience etc, or just hire someone else. It's not a disqualifying characteristic, but if the resume says one thing and the background check says a different thing, that's a red flag. Sometimes the red flag is nothing, basically all of us have had a scumbag for an employer at various points in our careers, who's might to lie about us to future employers just because they're spiteful. But red flags have to be chased down and verified before you can hire someone with red flags on their resume. Right now, in 2022, I would just hire them if they had a pulse, red flags or not. But when the next recession happens? And we've gone through three rounds of layoffs, and only now are positions opening up in onesies and twosies and there are 40 applicants? I'm just going to discard the 30 resumes with red flags. Among the 10 remaining resumes I'm gonna interview the 5 who went to the best schools and had the most experience.
- redler 5y ago
  Since it will be widely known among peer organizations that Apple has this policy, the presence or absence of the "Associate" title achieves this, in effect, does it not? I think it's unlikely someone seeking a 600K job will be mistaken for having been a retail employee.
  - sumeno 5y ago
    Based on the article it obviously isn’t widely enough known to prevent people from losing job offers over it.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      And in that scenario, Apple is the bad actor for referring to a non-C-suite employee as an associate, not the employer who fired someone over unverified information and poor assumptions?
      - sumeno 5y ago
        They weren’t fired, they had an offer revoked. But either way, two things can be bad at the same time
  - qqii 5y ago
    I'd argue that false data doesn't achieve this, it just confuses everything. Using an analogy in programming terms, it would be like `job_title <- Maybe "NULL"` whereas they really ment `job_title <- Nothing`.
    - redler 5y ago
      I do agree with this. If they stick with this policy it would be better if they use some unambiguous title like “Former Employee”.
- seanhunter 5y ago
  This was the policy during the time I worked at Goldman Sachs in fact. They wouldn't confirm any details other than your employment dates.
tedivm 5y ago
Protecting privacy would be not giving names out at all- instead they do confirm employment, but lie about what the role was.
SR2Z 5y ago
Or that by demoting people that Apple is lying and could be sued for tortious interference.
Chris2048 5y ago
There are reasons for privacy, which include discrimination based on that information. Discrimination based on incorrect information is just as harmful. That said "associate" is arguably vague.
FireBeyond 5y ago
> "Employee" is a term fraught with legal and other liability in it's use (think Uber drivers - are they employees or contractors?). HR departments will refer to everybody as “associates” to mitigate risk. If Apple wanted to confirm employment, but not divulge titles, they could say associate. But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles. There's no risk mitigation happening. It's just "you're no longer one of us, we don't give a shit".
- ghaff 5y ago
  >But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles. Is that actually the case?
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    The company involved stated that if the person was currently employed, they would give the job title (and that while their service would report 'Associate' post employment, if someone cared enough to clarify, they would be able to call them, give identifying information, and they would be able to get job titles from historic data).
    - hammock 5y ago
      So this isn't a case of Apple fucking past employees over. It's just a case of them not wanting to give the titles to Experian. What a lot of hullabaloo over nothing.
      - FireBeyond 5y ago
        Or anybody. So any ex-employee could potentially fail a background check / employment verification check (as at least one person here has). Because Apple, previously happy to say "Yes, this person works here as a Senior Product Manager" now says "Eh, sure. They were associated with the company." They're not obligated to, you're right. But it's not exactly endearing of a company that has any gratitude whatsoever to its employees. But then again, from a company that was more than happy to engage in multiple illegal acts to collude to avoid poaching, to collude to keep salaries artificially deflated, I'm not entirely surprised.

dsr_ 5y ago

If they wanted to protect privacy, they would only have two responses: "We confirm that this person worked for Apple, ending on [date]. By policy, we don't discuss any further details." "We do not have records that this person worked for Apple."

hammock 5y ago
That is essentially what wiping title record with "associate" does. It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee.
- BoiledCabbage 5y ago
  No it's clearly not. It's very clearly implying they had a job with the title "associate".
  - awill 5y ago
    Exactly. No information is better than inaccurate information.
  - adrusi 5y ago
    No it doesn't. It clearly could mean that, but it literally just means the person has associated with the company. I don't know why they'd use language that could create that confusion, but it's not straightforward dishonesty.
    - ant6n 5y ago
      It could mean that, but not clearly, and it really doesn't mean that.
      - dev_tty01 5y ago
        Setting aside whether it is a good practice or not, if all of these agencies know that Apple does this, then it becomes a de facto meangingless term. If this has been an ongoing practice for a while and an agency is not aware of it, then it is a bad agency to work with.
        BoiledCabbage 5y ago
        So your answer is "It's ok to be misleading. And because you don't know you're being mislead it's your fault"? Yeah I have a very different opinion of that situation.
        whynaut 5y ago
        They literally pre-empted this response at the beginning of the comment
- nwallin 5y ago
  > It's a generic term that is commonly synonymous with employee. It is not. It implies an entry level/unskilled/probationary position. You would call a person who works tier 1 support an associate, or works the cash register in an Apple store, or a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 2 months. You would not call a person whose job title reads "Software Engineer" and had been with the company for 18 months an associate. If you've got a stack of applicants and one of them comes up with some bullshit like their previous employer claims their job title was Associate and they claim their actual job title was Software Engineer, that means I either have to do legwork to figure out what's actually happening, is this person lying about their experience etc, or just hire someone else. It's not a disqualifying characteristic, but if the resume says one thing and the background check says a different thing, that's a red flag. Sometimes the red flag is nothing, basically all of us have had a scumbag for an employer at various points in our careers, who's might to lie about us to future employers just because they're spiteful. But red flags have to be chased down and verified before you can hire someone with red flags on their resume. Right now, in 2022, I would just hire them if they had a pulse, red flags or not. But when the next recession happens? And we've gone through three rounds of layoffs, and only now are positions opening up in onesies and twosies and there are 40 applicants? I'm just going to discard the 30 resumes with red flags. Among the 10 remaining resumes I'm gonna interview the 5 who went to the best schools and had the most experience.
redler 5y ago
Since it will be widely known among peer organizations that Apple has this policy, the presence or absence of the "Associate" title achieves this, in effect, does it not? I think it's unlikely someone seeking a 600K job will be mistaken for having been a retail employee.
- sumeno 5y ago
  Based on the article it obviously isn’t widely enough known to prevent people from losing job offers over it.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    And in that scenario, Apple is the bad actor for referring to a non-C-suite employee as an associate, not the employer who fired someone over unverified information and poor assumptions?
    - sumeno 5y ago
      They weren’t fired, they had an offer revoked. But either way, two things can be bad at the same time
- qqii 5y ago
  I'd argue that false data doesn't achieve this, it just confuses everything. Using an analogy in programming terms, it would be like `job_title <- Maybe "NULL"` whereas they really ment `job_title <- Nothing`.
  - redler 5y ago
    I do agree with this. If they stick with this policy it would be better if they use some unambiguous title like “Former Employee”.
seanhunter 5y ago
This was the policy during the time I worked at Goldman Sachs in fact. They wouldn't confirm any details other than your employment dates.

tedivm 5y ago

Protecting privacy would be not giving names out at all- instead they do confirm employment, but lie about what the role was.

SR2Z 5y ago

Or that by demoting people that Apple is lying and could be sued for tortious interference.

Chris2048 5y ago

There are reasons for privacy, which include discrimination based on that information. Discrimination based on incorrect information is just as harmful. That said "associate" is arguably vague.

FireBeyond 5y ago

> "Employee" is a term fraught with legal and other liability in it's use (think Uber drivers - are they employees or contractors?). HR departments will refer to everybody as “associates” to mitigate risk. If Apple wanted to confirm employment, but not divulge titles, they could say associate. But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles. There's no risk mitigation happening. It's just "you're no longer one of us, we don't give a shit".

ghaff 5y ago
>But yet if you call these services while the person is still employed, they absolutely will divulge titles. Is that actually the case?
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  The company involved stated that if the person was currently employed, they would give the job title (and that while their service would report 'Associate' post employment, if someone cared enough to clarify, they would be able to call them, give identifying information, and they would be able to get job titles from historic data).
  - hammock 5y ago
    So this isn't a case of Apple fucking past employees over. It's just a case of them not wanting to give the titles to Experian. What a lot of hullabaloo over nothing.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      Or anybody. So any ex-employee could potentially fail a background check / employment verification check (as at least one person here has). Because Apple, previously happy to say "Yes, this person works here as a Senior Product Manager" now says "Eh, sure. They were associated with the company." They're not obligated to, you're right. But it's not exactly endearing of a company that has any gratitude whatsoever to its employees. But then again, from a company that was more than happy to engage in multiple illegal acts to collude to avoid poaching, to collude to keep salaries artificially deflated, I'm not entirely surprised.