Apple fires employee for texting 'extremely personal' from a customer's phone

An Apple Store worker in Bakersfield, California has been fired for texting himself a customer’s “extremely personal” photograph after she took her iPhone for repair.

Ahead of an Apple store appointment last week, Gloria Fuentes deleted several apps from her cellphone. Fuentes cleansed her device of all social media, financial and banking apps before getting her screen repaired on November 4. She wanted to erase all her photos too. Ultimately, she ran out of time and handed over the phone to an employee who started "messing around with it for quite a while", she mentioned in a Facebook post.

"I didn’t really pay any mind to it because I just figured he’s doing his job, looking into my insurance info or whatever. He asked me for my passcode TWICE in that time frame which I, at the time, still didn’t think anything of (sic)," she wrote.

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Fuentes disappointed of the employee's actions

It was only after Fuentes reached home that she discovered a text had been sent to an unidentified number from her phone. She said that the Apple employee had gone through her device, retrieved a private photo that was captured a year ago, and texted it to himself. 

"I open it and instantly wanted to cry!!! This guy went through my gallery and 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!!! AND THIS PICTURE WAS FROM ALMOST A YEAR AGO SO HE HAD TO HAVE SCROLLED UP FOR A WHILE TO GET TO THAT PICTURE being that I have over 5,000 pics in my phone!!!! I could not express how disgusted I felt and how long I cried after I saw this!! (sic)" she wrote.

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Police start investigation into the incident

Fuentes rushed back to the Apple store and spoke to the store's manager promised to look into the matter. She also confronted the employee but the employee, who admitted that the number was his, but was not sure how the photo was sent. According to reports, Apple launched an internal investigation immediately 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". The Bakersfield Police Department is investigating the incident, say reports.

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