Employees Accuse Apple Of Spying And Silencing Workers

An Apple worker accused the company of spying, monitoring employees, and forbidding them to share working conditions in a lawsuit filed this Sunday.

According to Reuters, Amar Bhakta, who has worked in digital advertising for Apple since 2020, filed the complaint in California and provided more details of how the company operates to monitor its employees.

The lawsuit states that workers are required to download software—even on their own personal devices, not just their work devices—and the company gets to monitor and access all applications and personal information including photo libraries, health apps, emails, smart home data, and more.

Bhakta also included that the tech giant forbids employees to share information on working conditions and that he has been forced to take down information from his LinkedIn account and was forbidden to speak about digital advertising on podcasts.

“Apple’s surveillance policies and practices chill, and thus also unlawfully restrain, employee whistleblowing, competition, freedom of employee movement in the job market, and freedom of speech,” states the lawsuit as reported by Reuters.

Apple said in a statement that their workers have the right to discuss working conditions every year and that Bhakta’s case has no merit.

The lawyers behind Bhakta’s case are also working with two other Apple employees who filed a lawsuit earlier this year accusing the company of underpaying female workers.

Multiple tech giants have been dealing with workers’ complaints and actions these past few days. ByteDance recently sued an intern for $1.1 billion in damages from an AI breach, and Kenyan workers accused American tech companies of exploitation for AI training.