Apple (AAPL) Sued for Allegedly Spying on Employees

Apple (AAPL) is facing a new lawsuit that accuses the consumer electronics giant of illegally monitoring its workers’ personal devices and iCloud accounts, as well as barring them from discussing their pay and working conditions outside the company.

The lawsuit has been filed in California state court by Amar Bhakta, who currently works in digital advertising for Apple. He claims the company requires employees to install software on the devices that they use for work that allows Apple to access their email, photos , health data, and other personal information.

The lawsuit also alleges that Apple imposes confidentiality policies on staff that prohibits them from discussing with the media and outside parties their pay and working conditions, and from engaging in legally-protected whistleblowing.

A New Legal Challenge

Bhakta, who has worked for Apple since 2020, says he has been stopped from talking about his work on podcasts and instructed to remove information about Apple’s working conditions from his LinkedIn profile. “Apple’s surveillance policies and practices chill, and thus also unlawfully restrain (workers),” reads the lawsuit.

In response, Apple said in a written statement that the claims lack merit and that its workers are trained annually on their rights to discuss their working conditions. Beyond this newest legal action, Apple also faces at least three complaints from a U.S. labor board claiming that it has illegally stopped employees from discussing issues such as sex bias and pay discrimination with the media.

AAPL stock is up 25% so far this year.

Is AAPL Stock a Buy?

Apple stock has a consensus Moderate Buy rating among 33 Wall Street analysts. This rating is based on 23 Buy, eight Hold and two Sell recommendations issued in the past three months. The average AAPL price target of $243.39 implies 1.68% upside from current levels.

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