PAGA Lawsuit
The lawsuit was filed December 2nd in state court under the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) alleging three claims:
- Speech suppression
- Privacy Violations, Surveillance, and Forced Patronage
- Wage Clawbacks
Plaintiff Amar Bhakta was hired as a digital ad tech/operations manager in July 2020. He accuses Apple of accessing employee data through company-managed devices — including personal iPhones it “actively encourages” workers to use. According to Bhakta’s lawsuit, Apple has violated California law by requiring employees to agree to a policy that allows it to “engage in physical, video, and electronic surveillance” of them. As well, this policy further gives the company the ability to search Apple and non-Apple devices on “company premises,” which, in some instances, could allegedly involve a worker’s home office.
As a condition of his employment, Bhakta signed contracts with Apple, including an offer letter marked "Apple Confidential," an intellectual property agreement and a business conduct policy, that allegedly "place unlawful restraints on employee speech, competition, wage rights, autonomy and privacy." Bhakta added that Apple’s privacy policies harm his employment prospects.
ccording to the PAGAlawsuit,
- Bhakta was forbidden to participate in public speaking about digital advertising.
- Apple forced him to remove information from his LinkedIn page about his job at Apple.
- Apple’s policies push employees to meld their work and home lives digitally in a way that gives Apple knowledge of what they are up to beyond their jobs.
- Apple requires that employees only use Apple-made devices for work.
- Because Apple puts restrictions on the devices it owns, most employees end up using their own Apple devices.
- When using their own devices, they’re required to use their personal iCloud accounts and must agree to using software that gives the company the ability to see virtually anything happening on that device, including its real-time location.
- To evade Apple’s surveillance, employees could use a work-owned device and use a separate iCloud account only for work, the company “actively discourages” work-only iCloud accounts.
Apple and Privacy
Ironically, Apple is all about privacy, stating that, “privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s also one of our core values. Which is why we design our products and services to protect it. That’s the kind of innovation we believe in.” The global news company Semafor first reported the lawsuit, and commented:
“For Apple employees, it is a panopticon* in the literal sense. There’s no evidence that Apple is interested in the private lives of its employees, except when it has reason to believe they’re leaking information or stealing trade secrets. But there’s no way for employees to truly know if their employer is looking, or not. Or whether their movements are being recorded or stored in some way that could later come back to bite them.”
*The panopticon is a prison design concept from in the 18th century. The design is based on the idea that prisoners can be monitored by a single guard without the prisoners knowing if they are being watched. The term "panopticon" comes from the Greek words "pan" meaning "all" and "optic" meaning "seeing".
READ MORE CALIFORNIA LABOR LAW LEGAL NEWS
The New York Post noted that Apple is facing at least three complaints from a US labor board claiming it has illegally deterred employees from discussing issues such as sex bias and pay discrimination with each other and the media, including by restricting their use of social media and workplace messaging app Slack. The company has denied wrongdoing.