A wide-ranging lawsuit has been filed against Apple, accusing the company of invasively monitoring its employees and illegally restricting what they say about their work.
The lawsuit, first reported by Semafor, was filed on Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California by Amar Bhakta, who works for Apple as a digital advertising technology manager.
Bhakta argues that Apple’s policy of requiring employees to use Apple computers, phones, and cloud services “subjects employees to surveillance and coerces them into patronage by monetizing employees’ personal data as a condition of their employment.”
According to the lawsuit, many Apple employees, including Bhakta, use their personal iPhones and Macs for work and are required to install an electronic SIM card or virtual private network that gives Apple access to any data stored on the device and track their location in real time.
Apple also requires employees to use its iCloud service, and for employees who use their personal devices, this means giving the company virtually unlimited access to their personal clouds, the lawsuit says. “This data may include emails, contacts, reminders, entire photo libraries, internet browsing data, health data, messages, smart home data, passwords, applications, files, documents, calendars, notes, and backups,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit claims that Apple’s policies, including the Business Conduct Policy that all new employees must sign, allow the company to access, search, and monitor all data and communications on employees’ devices and iCloud accounts.
Bhakta also alleges that the company’s policy, which restricts the information that employees can share, including details about their compensation, violates California labor laws.
While the lawsuit does not provide details on how Bhakta has been affected by the policy, it states that he has been denied the ability to speak in public about his area of expertise, digital advertising, and that he was forced to remove information about his working conditions at Apple from LinkedIn.
“Being able to speak openly about my work is very important to me both professionally and personally,” Bhakta said in a statement released by his lawyers. “It’s disappointing that Apple, whose principle is privacy and confidentiality, is trying to monitor and censor me. This harms my ability to develop professionally. I hope that this complaint will force Apple to change its approach to monitoring employees outside of work and remind employees that they too have the right to protest.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit adds to a growing list of complaints about the company’s labor practices. In October, investigators from the National Labor Relations Board accused the company of imposing illegal confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure policies, non-competition policies, and social media policies on its employees across the country.
