Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #524

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Apple Pays Out Millions In Compensation To Student After iPhone Repair Facility Shared Her Explicit Personal Images Online
By Benjamin Mayo
Apple has settled a case with a 21- year-old student after she sent her iPhone to a repair facility in 2016 only to find that employees had uploaded person- al explicit images and videos to her Facebook account from the phone during the repair process.
The student had sent in her iPhone to Apple to get repaired. The invasion of priva- cy ultimately took place at a repair center in California, run by Pegatron, an Apple contrac-
tor. The Telegraph reports Apple paid
out millions in set-
tlement compen- sation.
Apple prides itself on its commit- ments to privacy and data security. Unfortunately, in this instance, those priorities were not upheld at its contractor’s
facility.
About 10 images and videos from her personal on- device photo library were shared online by the repair techni- cians. The lawsuit was suing Apple for invasion of pri- vacy and infliction
of emotional dis- tress. The employees involved were fired.
While it was being fixed, the two technicians post- ed “10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video”
from her Facebook account, in a way that suggested she had uploaded them herself. The images were only removed after friends informed her that they had been posted.
In a statement
to The Telegraph, Apple said “when we learned of this egregious viola- tion of our policies at one of our ven- dors in 2016, we took immediate action and have since continued to strengthen our vendor protocols.”
One of the issues here is that Apple instructs cus- tomers to send in their iPhone with the passcode dis- abled, which allows anyone in the chain to access any data stored on the device. However, it is always advised to also reset your device to factory settings before sending it in for repair.
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