How’s this for irony. An internal Apple presentation that taught employees how to deal with leaks has been leaked online. It’s an hour-long audio recording of an internal briefing at Apple titled “Stopping Leakers – Keeping Confidential at Apple.” The briefing was reportedly given to around 100 employees by three members of Apple’s Global Security division which included the director of global security David Rice, director of worldwide investigations Lee Freedman, and Global Security communications and training team’s Jenny Hubbert.
The Outline received this audio clip in which the members explain some of the processes that Apple has in place to stop the leaks. The Global Security team is tasked with making sure that nothing is leaked to the press or Apple’s competitors.
The team is staffed with former members of the NSA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the United States military. Safe to say, Apple takes leaks very seriously. The director of global security David Rice highlighted some of the ways that workers in the supply chain have used to steal parts.
They have tried flushing them down to later retrieve them for the sewers and simply tossing them over the fence. Some female employees have even tried to steal enclosures by putting it in the underwire of their bra.
An unannounced device’s enclosure or case is normally the most valuable thing that workers try to steal. Rice has seen cases in which workers have been offered up to a year’s worth of salary to steal the parts.
He also mentioned that Apple had to buy back over 29,000 enclosures ahead of the iPhone 5C’s announcement back in 2013 or else pictures of the handset would have been plastered on “every blog on Earth.”
Apple has done a good job of handling leaks from the supply chain. Rice mentioned that 2016 was the first year ever that more information was leaked out of Apple campuses in the United States compared to the Asia-based supply chain.
Despite that, it’s never going to come to a stage where there are no leaks or rumors about an upcoming Apple device. Apple’s efforts have had a visible impact on the stream of leaks, but people always find a way, and we can be sure that they will find a way in the future as well.
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