Apple’s Investigators Might Have Impersonated San Francisco Police In iPhone 5 Search
Remember the lost iPhone 5 we blogged about? Remember the man who found it was interrogated by the ‘San Francisco Police’? The bar owner was also interrogated by this ‘San Francisco Police’. Turns out Apple’s private investigators might have impersonated San Franciso Police officers.
According to The SF Weekly, when they reached Sergio Calderón, the man who believes he was the young man referred to as the Apple suspect in the original story about the iPhone 5 getting lost at a bar. He told The SF Weekly that six people with badges claiming to be San Francisco police officers were at his home and they asked about the missing iPhone 5. Turns out at least one of these men was actually an Apple employee.
They searched his home, car and computer with his consent. He said they never claimed to be working for Apple and he still has no idea who they were or why they searched his computer. He also says they threatened him. The San Francisco Police Department has told Gizmodo it had no knowledge of the search. When The SF Weekly reached one of the men, Anthony Colon who searched Calderón’s home because he left his contact information with calderón.
It turned out, Colon isn’t a member of the San Francisco police department at all. He’s a former San Jose policeman who now works for Apple. His LinkedIn profile shows he’s a senior investigator for Apple. He has taken the LinkedIn profile down but there’s a Google cache [You can't hide anything on the web].
Now, this isn’t the first time Apple has hired private security to track its leaks. That’s not a crime. What’s a crime however is impersonation. If the men, who searched Calderón’s home are not members of the San Francisco Police Department, then it’s a crime to impersonate the Police Department. They also questioned Calderón’s immigration status and we’re beginning to wonder. Where these men the same men who illegally raided Gizmodo’s Jason Chen’s home last year?
What do you think about this? Apple is certainly wrong for this kind of raids or aren’t they? Leave us a comment
Source: Gizmodo via The SF Weekly
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