Technology
Danish Kapoor
Danish Kapoor

Apple sues former employee who leaked sensitive information

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Apple has sued a former employee for leaking confidential information to journalists and employees of other companies, including unknown details about the Journal app, the development of its Vision Pro headset and more.

The lawsuit, filed ten days ago in California state court, states that Andrew Aude also leaked regulatory compliance strategies, number of employees and other product hardware features. Aude is said to have admitted in at least one of his messages that he leaked information to “kill” the products and features he was responsible for.

The company references many of Aude's communications in its lawsuit: “Between June and September 2023 alone, Mr. Aude contacted a The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) employee he called 'Homeboy' more than 1,400 times using an encrypted messaging app. Mr. Aude also read to Homeboy the feature list of a product that Apple has not yet officially announced. Mr. Aude sent more than 10,000 text messages to another journalist at The Information and traveled across the continent to meet him.”

Apple

The lawsuit also includes screenshots of the messages between Aude and “Homeboy”. The company stated that Aude frequently took screenshots and saved them on his iPhone provided by Apple.

Apple accuses Aude of leaking a list of final features for Apple's Journal app in an April 2023 phone call with the same reporter. A report about the unreleased app's features was published in The Wall Street Journal the same month.

Aude joined Apple in 2016 as an iOS engineer focused on optimizing battery performance. Apple's lawyers say that due to the nature of the role, Aude had access to “information about dozens of Apple's most sensitive products.”

The company states that the leaks were not discovered until late 2023. Representatives allege that when Aude was first interviewed in November 2023, he denied the leaks and lied about having his Apple-issued iPhone with him. It is alleged that he then pretended to need to go to the toilet, “pulled his iPhone out of his pocket during the break and permanently deleted a significant amount of evidence from his device, including the Signal app.”

Apple terminated Aude's employment in December

In the second meeting on December 12, it was stated that Aude admitted to leaking information about Apple's regulatory compliance strategies, unannounced products, development policies and hardware features of some released products to at least two journalists, and three days later, Aude was fired.

Danish Kapoor