Apple Sues Former Employee for Leaking Company Secrets

Apple Sues Former Employee for Leaking Company Secrets

Apple Sues Former Employee for Leaking Company Secrets Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters

 - Apple is suing a former employee for leaking company secrets, including information about the Journal app and the development of the Vision Pro headset, to journalists and other company employees. 

The former employee named Andrew Aude joined Apple in 2016, not long after he graduated from college. He worked as an iOS engineer focusing on improving battery performance, which allowed him to find out information about secret Apple projects. 

According to a lawsuit filed by Apple in California State Court a few days ago, Aude sent more than 1,400 messages via the Signal chat application with 'Homeboy', his secret name for a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) journalist. 

Apple accused Aude of leaking the Journal application to a WSJ reporter in April 2023 because he wanted the project to be canceled. The WSJ published an article about the unreleased Journal app that same month. 

Aude also sent more than 10,000 messages to a reporter for The Information. All of this communication was carried out using the company's office iPhone. "Mr. Aude often took and saved screenshots of his communications on Apple's office iPhone for safekeeping," Apple said in its lawsuit, as quoted by The Verge, Saturday (30/3/2024). 

Apple only learned of this information leak at the end of 2023. When Apple representatives first met with Aude in November 2023, he was said to have denied his involvement in the leak and lied about bringing his Apple iPhone. 

Then Aude pretended he needed to go to the restroom. He then took the iPhone out of his pocket during a break and deleted a number of significant pieces of evidence from the iPhone, including the Signal application,

At a second meeting on December 12, Aude admitted that he had leaked information about Apple's strategy for regulatory compliance, unannounced products, development policies, and the hardware characteristics of certain already released products to at least two journalists. 

Three days after the meeting, Apple fired Aude. The iPhone manufacturer accused Aude of violating the company's confidentiality agreement and asked for compensation of USD 25,000 or around Rp. 397 million.