Apple is being sued by an employee who claims the tech giant’s “speech suppression policies” unlawfully restrict its workers from talking about their experience at the company. The same lawsuit, filed Monday in Santa Clara, California, calls Apple a “surveillance capitalist” that violates its employees’ privacy by tracking their personal iPhones and other devices.
“Apple’s speech suppression policies have harmed – and continue to harm – Apple’s employees,” the lawsuit claims. “The secrecy permits the wrongdoing to continue. This is a real and ongoing concern.”
The lawsuit was filed in state court by Apple employee Amar Bhakta, who has managed digital ads for the company since joining in 2020. Bhakta and his lawyers claim Apple violates its employees right to free speech by imposing stiff restrictions on what they can talk about.
This hurts employees in several ways, the lawsuit claims, including: blocking them from discussing their wages and work conditions; “invades” employee privacy by having them submit to having their nonwork devices surveilled; and allowing Apple to unlawfully “clawback” earned wages.
“Apple’s surveillance policies and practices chill, and thus also unlawfully restrain, employee whistleblowing, competition, freedom of employee movement in the job market, and freedom of speech,” the lawsuit claims.
In particular, Bhakta was upset the company “forbade” him from discussing his job on podcasts and in other public settings, as well as required him to edit some information on his LinkedIn page — something that hurts his future job prospects, the lawsuit claims.
Apple did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“At Apple, we’re focused on creating the best products and services in the world and we work to protect the inventions our teams create for customers,” Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock said in a statement to The Verge. “Every employee has the right to discuss their wages, hours and working conditions and this is part of our business conduct policy, which all employees are trained on annually. We strongly disagree with these claims and believe they lack merit.”
The tech company, headquartered in nearby Cupertino, California, has access to personal emails, photos, and health information, among other private details, thanks to its overreaching surveillance, the lawsuit added. Apple violated California law by requiring employees to allow the company to “engage in physical, video, and electronic surveillance” of them, the suit continued.
“The personal data contained on an iPhone or other digital devices is more than private. It is also valuable,” the lawsuit continued. “Personal data is the fuel of surveillance capitalism.”
And employees who wish to switch from Apple to Google or other non-Apple products to avoid surveillance are put in a tricky spot, according to the lawsuit.
“The cost to employees of switching to a non-Apple device for purely personal reasons is too high,” the lawsuit claims, pointing to Apple’s “monopoly power” on the U.S. smartphone market. “Apple’s employees, even more so than Apple’s customers, are trapped in Apple’s prison yard.”
The lawsuit does not specify how much Bhakta is seeking in damages.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
