[th3l3mons]

Apple has used US Customs to seize parts intended for repairs, including parts from donor boards. Apple sued (and last I knew was trying to appeal) a Norway repair shop for repairing iPhones using "counterfeit" components. iirc, some parts, including the display, must match appropriately or the OS won't boot as a form of parts validation, effectively preventing display swaps when repairing.

I don't think the previous comment was licensing the design. Apple has been very aggressive with donor parts and data recovery.

[olliej]

I’d be interested in knowing where those parts came from - do they come from Apple facilities (because apple does refurbish devices) or do they come entirely from third party recyclers?

I’ve seen plenty of articles about parts coming directly from factories, rather than from torn down devices.

What is the actual ratio of stolen vs recovered by non-Apple facilities ?

I’m sure Apple would claim 100% stolen and rtr orgs would say 100% recovered. Note that Apple pays (in the form of a discount) for returned devices so if a refurbisher is selling parts they’ve claimed aren’t recoverable they are selling stolen goods (reason for destroying irrecoverable devices is to reduce/remove incentive for this type of theft)