Apple Settles With Customer After Technicians Posted Her Explicit Photos Online

Tech support takes a creepy (and illegal) turn

iPhone
An iPhone.
Blocks/Unsplash

If you took your phone in to have it repaired, you’d expect the technicians tasked with the work to respect your privacy. You certainly wouldn’t want them looking through your photos, and you’d especially not want them to post your photos online. Take that sentiment and increase it exponentially and you have how most people would feel about a third party posting their explicit photos online without their consent.

Unfortunately for one Oregon woman, that’s precisely what happened in 2016. According to a new article at Engadget, a University of Oregon student sent her phone to Pegatron for repairs. At this point, a pair of technicians decided to look through her photos, find several explicit ones of their client and then post them on her Facebook account, making it seem as though she had posted them herself.

This whole thing is, basically, an escalating series of things you should never ever do on grounds of both moral and professional conduct.

The woman in this case threatened a lawsuit — an eminently understandable decision, given the circumstances. Apple ended up conducting an investigation, which resulted in the pair of technicians losing their jobs. Ultimately, the woman received millions of dollars in a settlement from the tech company. This all took place several years ago, but a conflict between Pegatron and its insurance company has resulted in it coming to light now.

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