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