Apple's Toughest Security Measure Trips Up on iCloud: Departed Employees Still Receive Confidential File Updates

According to Dynabook Beating monitoring, Apple often encourages employees to use their personal Apple IDs to handle work files. After employees depart, the company revokes most internal permissions, but data scattered across personal iCloud, iMessage, and unmanaged folders may still persist, and even receive update notifications. Several former employees have stated that they did not intentionally take any data, yet years after leaving, they could still access Apple's internal files.

This issue came to light after Apple sued OpenAI. Apple accused two former employees of deliberately downloading or transferring unpublished products, manufacturing processes, and supply chain information, which OpenAI denied. Apple emphasized that the lawsuit was about intentional theft of trade secrets and not about employees inadvertently retaining iCloud files.