Member-only story
Why I am Freaked Out by Apple’s Data Sharing
A personal story about data privacy
Against my better judgement, I purchased from Amazon an extra iPad. I wanted a bit of convenience and a luxury tablet experience and Amazon was offering a good price. I regretted the decision (more on that in another post). After about a day, I decided to return it. That’s when it started…
Helpfully, Amazon makes the returns process pretty easy. I need to request a return label and Amazon even offered a web chat to talk me through the process. I was connected quickly with an advisor named Mohammad.
Mohammed told me that I would need to reset my device before returning it. No problem, I’ll do it once I get the return label and then package everything up at the same time. I asked Mohammed to proceed with the return. And then this exchange happened:
‘Please disconnect the device from [your] Apple account’. It transpires that Mohammed could see that the iPad was still logged into its AppleID. It ‘shows in [his] system’. As you can see, he didn’t feel able to talk about how the system knew this information or, indeed, if there was any other stuff he could see.
