[_drimzy]

> Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot?

Nope. You can create a separate iCloud account just for work. I did that during my time there. I always maintained a separate work phone, and used work icloud account for that. The folks complaining are the ones who just didn't do that, and added 'work data' on their personal account, which ofcourse they will have to hand over if subpoenaed.

[Manuel_D]

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. To be frank, this twitter thread seems sensationalist if reality is closer to "I didn't bother to create a separate work account" rather than "Apple asked me to merge my personal account".

[endymi0n]

I find it harmful to jump to a conclusion too early and blame the victim. Forcing someone to merge these accounts can take many forms and Apple has thousands of different teams and managers.

Even if there was zero explicit or implicit force in place, the circumstances can still be non-obvious.

If you get handed a MacBook, you're basically forced to work with an iCloud account. And the fact that making the mistake of using your own one in the high-pressure situation of a first day in a massive company is apparently a non-reversible decision that hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here.

[mlyle]

> hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here.

Trust me, Apple legal would rather not dig through your personal information to find nuggets to hand to opposing counsel during discovery.

But if there's work information in your personal account, and Apple is legally compelled to go through accounts with work information as part of discovery... what's going to happen?

[labawi]

People will call them awful and disrespectful, for not providing explicit instructions to use a new or work account, and warning everything in the account may be impounded.

[rmah]

New hires at Apple get multiple hours of training in information security and other HR policy. There is warning. It's just ignored by lots of folks.

[teakettle42]

> I find it harmful to jump to a conclusion too early and blame the victim.

The only victims I can possibly see here are those employees that had to review nude images inappropriately stored on a work computer.

Apple absolutely does not require that you use your personal iCloud account on your work machines, and any professional should know that it is inappropriate to browse, share, or store nude photos (of anyone) on company-owned hardware, and should never have placed their colleagues in a position of having to deal with those images.

[Broken_Hippo]

Everyone has days of lax judgement: Excitement over a new job can do this. Anxiety, depression, a sick child, yourself being sick, recent marriage, a big move, and a slew of other things can do this.

Apple should be in the position to instruct new employees to create an icloud account for work alongside explaining that the computer they are handed must be turned in at times. The employees aren't the only ones with responsibility here.

[teakettle42]

> Anxiety, depression, a sick child, yourself being sick, recent marriage, a big move, and a slew of other things can do this.

Maintaining a modicum of personal responsibility is not asking for very much here.

In fact, I’d say it’s the bare minimum professionalism requires.

You don’t own your company-provided equipment. This is explained by Apple, in addition to being a patently obvious fact.

If you personally choose to misuse company equipment, that is something you are personally responsible for.

Adults trying to shift blame back to Apple is a remarkable abdication of a simple responsibility. If they cannot exercise good judgement in such a straight-forward case, I question whether they can be expected to operate professionally in the work-force at all.

[ed_elliott_asc]

I’ve been given a MacBook on the first day at work, there was zero chance I would log in with my own iCloud ID - I created a new one.

[OnlyMortal]

Correct. Don’t use work computers for personal stuff and don’t use personal stuff for work.

It’s part of the on-boarding at my company (which happens to have formerly been at the same location Apple’s HQ is now).

[emodendroket]

The original complaint also seems to put the blame on Apple but I would have to think that letting people start deleting stuff in discovery is not allowed, even if you swear it's personal and irrelevant to the case.

[renerthr]

I'm curious about this. It's 'not allowed' explicitly by the judge? Can the employee be charged with 'evidence tampering' even if the judge didn't issue any order that explicitly prohibits the employee from deleting their files?

[emodendroket]

I think the concern is that the employer could be accused of destroying relevant evidence in that case. If I’ve understood the tweets and the Wikipedia article on e-discovery correctly, these photos went through the preservation phase but likely were not actually handed over to the other party since relevance is a factor before that happens.

[raxxorrax]

Having a separate account for work and private stuff should be common sense. No surprise your employer wants to access it when you used it for work related reasons. This can be as trivial as some business contacts having your mail and trying to contact Apple.

[cutemonster]

People just out from college might not know this yet. And others too who never were in similar situations and never had any problems with their employer or the legal system, and don't visit HN

[ipaddr]

Why are apple employees getting subpoenaed? Is this common at Apple?

[irrational]

Major companies are getting sued continually. It probably isn’t an individual person, but a product that a team or department worked on that is involved in the lawsuit.

[renerthr]

How often is 'continually'? Is there any way to estimate how many times per year is each major company sued?

[throwaways885]

A company like Apple probably deals with hundreds of major lawsuits per year. Must be thousands of smaller cases too.

[irrational]

Not that I know of. A rough guess is they receive 3 new lawsuits daily.

[version_five]

It's not clear if it was the employee in particular. It was a work device, so it's possible that devices from people on a team or involved in something were needed for some legal thing.

[_drimzy]

+1 It must have not been the employee in particular. Big companies get sued all the time, and then all written records on work devices, for products that got sued, becomes evidence.