As a recently retired Apple Staffer with a significant part of my career in AppleCare management I can confirm:
1. Advisors MUST give customer 'prepare for service information' on call/via email. Managers/Quality listen to calls and failure can lead to disciplinary. It's on the Apple website! 2. Genius caution backups etc before accepting device. I've experienced this first hand. 3. If Apple lose a device, there is no need to go to media. Once appropriate checks to confirm loss (which can take a week or so checking with team and freight if involved) the device will be replaced with like for like spec (or next one up if not currently available). Biggest problem is unreasonable expectation. 'You lost my device, give me a replacement NOW'. - No Johnny we will need to look for it/confirm loss first. 4. The replacement does not involve any NDA or other gag. It's an easy approval process though I can only recall a need two or three times in my tenure. With thousands of products moving around at any time (warranty and non-warranty service, battery replacements etc) even the best system can have a lost item. To the person who called 'sloppy', no, just fact of life, sometimes mistakes do happen. Even robotic systems can have errors, and humans are just that, human. Anyone who claims perfection is a liar or deluded. 5. Depending on if Apple was at fault and caused harm/disruption additionally an appeasement MAY be offered solely at Apple discretion after the initial issue is resolved. It will relate to the issue. e.g. for a computer issue it may be an external hard drive etc. Again there are no NDAs or other gags involved. 6. Service at an ARS can be very quick or you can be asked to return later in the day depending on that day's workload or days if parts need to be brought in. AppleCare/Stores are staffed based on expected volume but there are sick days, unexpected spikes that blow the best plans.
Personally my recommendation is, backup, do another separate backup then erase the device and set up as new if it has ability.
Apple do caution backup/data loss and especially on newer devices if your motherboard is replaced, there goes your SSD as well.
With iCloud Keychain being so simple anyone who does not make use of that is a fool. I also use a major password manager app to be sure to be sure.
There are 3rd party apps that Apple determine are secure enough to use internally though NDA would prevent me from confirming or denying any specific apps.
Seriously, there are two mistakes detailed in the original story. The lady failed to back up and secure important information, and Apple lost her computer. Hopefully the lady learned her lesson about backing things up and the Apple Store staff reviewed their processes, plugged the hole and supplemented staff training. With the computer found, repaired and returned, all concerned have the opportunity to use this as a lesson learned.
There's a possible and substantially more severe third mistake in play. If the computer in question is a personally owned device and she was using it for the storage of business information (which is kind of implied because it contained work related passwords) then she is imperiling both her job, her employer's information security policies, and possibly committing violations of legal requirements for the proper handling and retention of business related information (Code of Federal Regulations).
I never cease to be amazed (in a bad way) about how some employees, or worse yet employers, are so cavalier about having business information of any sort, or horribly worse, corporate intellectual property such as source code and product designs, on personal computing devices. Companies that understand the utter foolishness of this usually consider occurrences of these acts sufficient cause for termination. Leaders of publicly held companies that encourage or allow employees to commingle business and personal information on employee owned devices should have to answer for their incompetence to the board of directors.
She claimed that her job was on the line because the computer contained passwords that she failed to back up before taking it in for repair.
Which also means she did not have a backup to prevent against inadvertent deletion or hard drive failure. Serious lack of attention to detail going on here.
While there are “two mistakes” (or three if you count the failure to follow good security practices), the user has total control over actions that would have made this a non-story. What if Apple had determined that the problem was not the display, but a motherboard problem that required replacement of the board and the soldered-on SSD? It’s nice that Apple will review their processes but the ultimate root cause of the problem is failure to take necessary precautions for critical data.
Equipment can be replaced. Lost data is much more difficult.
Comments
1. Advisors MUST give customer 'prepare for service information' on call/via email. Managers/Quality listen to calls and failure can lead to disciplinary. It's on the Apple website!
2. Genius caution backups etc before accepting device. I've experienced this first hand.
3. If Apple lose a device, there is no need to go to media. Once appropriate checks to confirm loss (which can take a week or so checking with team and freight if involved) the device will be replaced with like for like spec (or next one up if not currently available). Biggest problem is unreasonable expectation. 'You lost my device, give me a replacement NOW'. - No Johnny we will need to look for it/confirm loss first.
4. The replacement does not involve any NDA or other gag. It's an easy approval process though I can only recall a need two or three times in my tenure. With thousands of products moving around at any time (warranty and non-warranty service, battery replacements etc) even the best system can have a lost item. To the person who called 'sloppy', no, just fact of life, sometimes mistakes do happen. Even robotic systems can have errors, and humans are just that, human. Anyone who claims perfection is a liar or deluded.
5. Depending on if Apple was at fault and caused harm/disruption additionally an appeasement MAY be offered solely at Apple discretion after the initial issue is resolved. It will relate to the issue. e.g. for a computer issue it may be an external hard drive etc. Again there are no NDAs or other gags involved.
6. Service at an ARS can be very quick or you can be asked to return later in the day depending on that day's workload or days if parts need to be brought in. AppleCare/Stores are staffed based on expected volume but there are sick days, unexpected spikes that blow the best plans.
Personally my recommendation is, backup, do another separate backup then erase the device and set up as new if it has ability.
Apple do caution backup/data loss and especially on newer devices if your motherboard is replaced, there goes your SSD as well.
There are 3rd party apps that Apple determine are secure enough to use internally though NDA would prevent me from confirming or denying any specific apps.
I never cease to be amazed (in a bad way) about how some employees, or worse yet employers, are so cavalier about having business information of any sort, or horribly worse, corporate intellectual property such as source code and product designs, on personal computing devices. Companies that understand the utter foolishness of this usually consider occurrences of these acts sufficient cause for termination. Leaders of publicly held companies that encourage or allow employees to commingle business and personal information on employee owned devices should have to answer for their incompetence to the board of directors.