How an Apple iCloud Policy Fueled Employee Leaks Ahead of OpenAI Suit
The iPhone maker has accused OpenAI and former Apple employees of deliberately stealing Apple trade secrets. But there’s also a long history of Apple alumni accidentally taking confidential material with them.
In a lawsuit early last month, Apple accused former employees who are now at OpenAI of stealing a trove of trade secrets from the iPhone maker—in part by improperly accessing confidential Apple documents after they left the company. Even before the suit was filed, some of the more than 400 former Apple employees who now work at OpenAI began receiving stern letters from Apple lawyers informing them they were in possession of confidential Apple material, people familiar with the matter said.
But the reason many of them had access to that material was due to an Apple policy, not because the former employees were attempting to steal its secrets, the people said. The issue: Even though Apple kicked them off most of its corporate systems after they resigned, the former employees continued to have access to Apple files shared with them when they still worked there.