Apple Staff Fired After Reports of Sharing and Ranking Customers' Photos

Stealing photos from customer’s phones, taking pictures of customers and female staff without their consent, and “ranking” them out of ten.

This is what staff at the Carindale Apple store in Brisbane, Australia, have allegedly been caught doing red-handed, according to reports. Although Apple says “no evidence” that “customer data or photos were inappropriately transferred”, four male staff members have been fired following the incident came to light.

The Courier-Mail today reported that over 100 “close-up and explicit” images were taken of customers and staff without their consent — and even more were stolen from customer’s phones.

According to Courier Mail’s source in the store, the Apple leadership team isn’t answering female staff’s questions about if they have been victims, and customers have not been informed of the breach.

Apple confirmed in a statement to Gizmodo the Carindale store is indeed under investigation, and several employees have been terminated for “a violation of Apple’s business conduct policy”.

“Apple believes in treating everyone equally and with respect, and we do not tolerate behavior that goes against our values. We are investigating a violation of Apple’s business conduct policy at our store in Carindale, where several employees have already been terminated as a result of our findings,” Apple said.

“Based on our investigation thus far, we have seen no evidence that customer data or photos were inappropriately transferred or that anyone was photographed by these former employees. We have met with our store team to let them know about the investigation and inform them about the steps Apple is taking to protect their privacy.”

(Gizmodo)