T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in::T-Mobile has been sued again for failing to protect consumer data after an employee at one of its Washington stores stole nude images off of a customer’s phone.
The employee was and is a scum bag human, but what dumbass trades a phone with nudes on it‽ I wouldn’t even get a phone serviced with nudes.
Most people aren’t all that clear on the distinction of things being “on” a phone. When they switch to their next phone and their photos immediately sync onto it from whatever cloud stuff they use, they may have the illusion that the new phone is where their photos “are” now and not consider the continuing existence of the data on the old one.
Basic technical literacy should be everyone’s responsibility and would be in a perfect world, but any IT person will tell you that it can never be assumed of anyone. However on the bright side, stories like this blowing up in the mainstream news will knock a little awareness into more end-user skulls every now and then. Send it to all the non-techies you know and care about!
After being in IT for a decade it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent people are when it comes to tech.
At my first gig in NYC I worked at a smaller financial firm (about 100 people) and every mid-level and above employee was given a work phone. One time I got a ticket that said “my smartphone is being really slow, can someone please take a look?”. I went up there and it was a guy in his 40s (I was like 30), suit and tie, I think he was a Junior VP or something like that. He gave me his Galaxy S5 and I looked at the RAM usage and it was all taken up by Chrome. I opened up Chrome and he had 99+ tabs open, I told him that was the reason and he said “Oh… I thought those automatically closed when I exited (he meant switched apps, not killing the process)…”, I told him they didn’t and started swiping them away, after the first few it was about 90 tabs of (teen) porn 🤣. I had to stand there in front of him, straight faced for a good few minutes cleaning up his porn. Afterwards I said “it should be better now, just remember to close your tabs when you’re finished with them.” and left. Once I got in the elevator I nearly pissed myself laughing so hard.
That’s awesome. Reminds me of having to tell an SVP that yes, per his demand, I did take his request to keep sharing music online illegally at work. He didnt seem to accept that the legal letters the form received meant he needed to change anything.
What could have been an ‘oh shit, my bad’ and noone has to know - turned into the entire leadership weighed in to direct me to delete the files and tools and be very clear he was putting his employment at risk.
The poor man’s ego. He seemed to think the IT guy didn’t have the ability to speak to him like that. Even insisted I tell him in front of two of his staff as a power play
Omg that’s golden
Yeah, that was about a decade ago and it’s still fresh in my memory, probably one of the most difficult times to maintain my composure. I could tell he wanted to die inside the moment I told him the tabs didn’t disappear.
I’ve seen too many guys, even those in “respectable” positions like executives or club captains, just leave their porn tabs open before asking me for some help with their phones.
When I asked them to open up their browser they would straight up open it up to a previously opened porn tab and start to panic. And somehow, the porn site that opened is always XNXX, lol. Pornhubs’ banned here and I guess XNXX just become popular instead.
It’s quite ridiculous how brazen they are about it
I’m not gonna lie I do this too. Not leaving porn tabs open, but not closing apps/tabs. Android should automatically clean these up afaik.
Android should automatically clean these up afaik
NOOOOOOOOOO! DO NOT. EVEN. SUGGEST. THAT.
I’ve got hundreds of tabs opened, if Android cleaned them automatically it’d be like burning my own Library of Alexandria.Use bookmarks my dude
Like if I didn’t have any mess in my bookmarks as well…
Apart from that, a tab open means a task to do. I can bookmark an interesting tab only if I’ve “been there” already, e.g. if I’ve already read an article cover to cover.
Someone needs to share this to [email protected]
after the first few it was about 90 tabs of (teen) porn
I better hope you saved the links. Just asking for a friend.
Bro it’s 2023. Do you and your friend really not know how to find porn on the internet?
Sad but true.
As one of those IT people (who was taught on punched cards), I’d had some hope that by the 21st century only GenX and Boomers would have this issue.
That young adults don’t know this stuff is very frustrating.
Most people cant explain how a toaster works - it may as well be magic to them.
There is actually a theory floating around, that people growing up in the 80ies-2000 were the most tech literate, because they had to tinker to get thinks to work. Want to play a game on DOS 6.2 and it did not work? Edit some system files for more memory. Today the technisch hidden behind false physics and got really well.
My son is nine. I got him a Kano (the old one with a raspberry pie as base) and he has to learn why we need to connect a display to the processing unit and connect peripherals to do things. His friends own a tablet, a smartphone and a gaming console. You cannot see behind the tech in those, if you don’t want to destroy them and explore hobbit works (on a basic level).
Kano. Never heard if it…of too the webs I go!
Thanks!
It is a great project, but unfortunately I guess it is not running very well. They did the setup with raspberry pies first with additional modules like a screen, an LED matrix and other things you could program. The software experience is pretty awesome. The whole manual is telling your kid a story and describing everything in just the right language for a kid. You plug it and the story goes on at terminal level when your kid is promted to write their name. After this it boots into a really well made desktop with a adventure game to get to know the computer, a bunch of programming tools and a browser.
technisch
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It’s genuinely crazy. I’ve had to remove viruses from my friends (16 or 17 at the time) and just didn’t understand. Why are you allowing things to make admin changes? Or just having to explain the difference to people what a “zip drive” is and a USB drive. As things get more “convenient” tech literacy definitely goes down.
I worked in my university’s computer lab and one time I had a girl complain that the computer wasn’t allowing her to do something (like download or save a file, this was over a decade ago) and she was frustrated. I asked her to show me what the issue was. She did what she was trying to do, a pop-up appeared and without reading it she clicked “no” and then proceeded to bitch about it not working. I did it again and the pop-up was asking for permission but she kept denying it, and then complaining that it didn’t work 🤦♂️
Though I do see that these two have the opposite problems. One clicks yes without understanding, the other clicks no without understanding.
Though I will say I wish the admin access requests had more information about what the app wants to do with that admin access. And that programs that request admin access for things they don’t really need it for were generally treated with disdain.
It’s not that she didn’t understand what it was asking, she straight up didn’t even read it, as soon as it came up she clicked “no” in a split second. I watched her do it like three times.
Yeah, that was a part of my assumption, that her misunderstanding was about whether she should read it rather than about what the words themselves said. Those who do at least read have a better chance at understanding, though messages aren’t always easy to understand.
In a way, the two have the same issue: they think that these message dialogs are things that get in the way of doing what they want to do. They just act on that in opposite ways so the yes guy allows everything to happen (including bad stuff he doesn’t actually want) and your friend disallows anything from happening, including what she does want.
They are both trying to run before they have learned to walk properly.
We started with Boomers etc who never used tech so had no idea what to do. Then a couple generations of people having to learn tech to use it. Now we are at the point where it’s so easy to use that people can use without ever having to learn about it.
My toaster now gets regular updates and needs constant internet access
My oven asked me to allow cookies 🍪🍪🍪
On the plus side it’s going to keep you employed, a bit like COBOL programmers today.
Back when I was in college (mid to late 2000s) I worked in the campus computer lab. People frequently asked “how do I print stuff?” because they had to pay for it ($25 was included, it was to stop people from printing out a few hundred page books for free), they just had to swipe their ID at a touchscreen terminal, select the print jobs and hit “print”.
This girl came over asking this question and I repeated the above, then she said “No… how do I print from the computer?”. I was dumbfounded because this was a very large statue university that didn’t accept just anyone. It was Microsoft Word (when they switched from the menu bar to that stupid start menu style button in the upper left hand corner) and she had zero clue how to use it. I was thinking “damn girl, how did you make it through high school and get accepted here?!”. She was apparently your typical hot blonde airhead.
Please don’t be sexist
Oh shut up. Lemmy is quickly turning into Reddit where people get butthurt and cry foul over the dumbest things.
People forget, my ex sold her laptop on eBay, but forgot to wipe it and it had a bunch of nudes she had sent me over the years on it. After she realized what she did she told him to wipe the computer because she forgot to 🤦♂️ this was like a decade ago before BitLocker/encryption was standard on most laptops. The dude definitely saw her naked.
I had a friend leave her laptop with me for some maintenance. I think it was probably a reformat or something? I return her laptop, and she asks “have you seen my photos in folder X on the desktop?”. I responded “no, why would I”. She went “oh, such a shame” and made a “cartoonish” pouty face. From the conversation that followed, they were “raunchy”.
Like, bruh, I won’t be looking into your data. Want me to see something, send it to me straight, don’t expect me to snoop around lol
Yeah. We’re stupid. Title the folder “/c/Maalus look here” and we might
Still wouldn’t tbh if it wasn’t relevant, i.e. if she asked to save specific data from that folder
I’ve been asked to help a couple save/recover their porn folder. Harder not to see at that point.
I worked for sprint in a retail store for 3 years, and the number of people that handed me their phones with their own nudes as the backgrounds was shocking.
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They could just be an exhibitionist. Self absorbed is also a possibility. Or both!
I was pretty oblivious at the time so it’s possible. But I don’t think so.
I’ve seen it as a bdsm humiliation task a few times? Usually temporary though.
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One of our customers sent their server back to us for repair, and we were greeted with a desktop background of the grottiest fanny any of us have ever seen.
So what do you do if you literally cant wipe the phone I.e broken screen? Just never have anything there to begin with?
Phones these days are encrypted. If you ever set up a pin/password to unlock your phone, that means it’s encrypted. Just make sure your phone is powered off or restarted (or battery drained, if the off button isn’t working), before you drop it off at the repair shop.
No one can access your files in this state - not even the manufacturer (unless there’s backdoor, but that’s a different topic - but even then, there are many “secure folder” type apps you could use to encrypt sensitive data).
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Remote wipes are possible. Log into your Apple/Google account, figure out how to find your device, then perform a remote wipe.
Assuming the device is powered on and can connect to a network to recieve the instruction.
Plug it into a computer and delete the files that way?
Youve never actually had that happen if you think its that easy.
Guys no…
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You cant wipe a phone remotely with your google sign on unless “find my device” is enabled, which it never was.
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My phone does not just give access automatically to any device plugged into it. You are REQUIRED to give permission from the phone. Which cant be done because the screen is fucked.
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Your phone SHOULDNT be accessible in this scenario because allowing any device to just plug in and download everything with no authentication is a security risk.
It is still possible to unlock an android phone with a fucked screen.
I had to do this once and managed to unlock the phone with a USB mouse. It took me a while to get the right pattern, but it is possible.
I mean sure it’s not easy to remote wipe if you never set up the feature that lets you remote wipe.
My phone does not just give access automatically to any device plugged into it. You are REQUIRED to give permission from the phone. Which cant be done because the screen is fucked.
The first ever Android I had (Galaxy S4) was sadly dropped by a friend, and the oled screen was toast within a few days… thankfully I had previously authorized ADB on my main computer, had it paired to a Sony Ericsson LiveView (with OpenLiveView), and my bluetooth headset was set up to automatically launch the music player when connected. Could also make calls using the voice assistant (forgot what it was called back then, S-Voice or something?) needless to say a screen replacement wasn’t urgent at all.
Can’t say I’d be able to do the same nowadays on modern Android with all the forced app killing and stuff, as well as Google Assistant being a massive downgrade (believe most useful actions on a smashed device would require unlocking, and on-screen confirmation)
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Actually yes, but that’s just old man me yelling at the clouds. Nudes are just so pointless, especially of oneself.
Flashback to the time Gary Glitter got arrested for handing in a PC for repair that was stuffed to the gills with child porn.
Simple, Could’ve broken it beyond use after taking the noods. Possibly due to holding it an awkward position to get them sick porn angles.
Everyone knows that 196° is the best, and subsequently the most awkward and prone to dropping angle for porn.
See, I don’t care if people see my nudes as such. What would bother me more is the act of accessing my phone in ways they didn’t need to, rather than what they found, so I don’t see much point in removing nudes first.
“But 3rd party repair people will install TikTok on your phone if you trust them”
Are there people out there who are not factory resetting their phones before they trade them in?
…what?
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There are people out there, a LOT, that don’t know how to power off a phone.
Same people using “Google” as their browser… 🙆
I wouldn’t doubt that 75% or more of people don’t. Back before encryption was standard on Windows laptops my ex sold her laptop on eBay and forgot to wipe it, it had a bunch of nudes on it that she sent me over the years. Instead of just assuming the person would wipe it she messaged them and told them to wipe it because she had forgotten to and asked them to please not look at the contents of the drive 🤦♂️🤦♂️
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These days it’s pretty difficult to get malware on smartphones, most exploits are quickly patched by Google or Apple. “Bad actors” need to use zero-day exploits to get their malware onto devices and/or pay millions of dollars to use a tool like Pegasus onto someone’s device. They’re not going to waste that money on someone like you or I.
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You mean Chrome? 🤣
It’s DBAN time!
I rescued a 2010 Macbook Pro from a recycling dropoff and the previous owner did not wipe it. They had an Excel file with all their logins in it. Bank accounts and all.
I remember my first therapist telling me that he stored all of his logins in a text document on his computer. I told him that was a horrible idea and he was like “why? 🤔”
Samsung’s official service center refused to not wipe the phone after a screen replacement, because “procedures”. Paying extra wasn’t even an option! So I said “fuck them” and took my Note 9 to an independent repairman who did it at half the official price because he could separate broken glass from a working screen and replace just the former. I simply turned the phone off and trusted Samsung Secure Startup encryption before handing it over to the guy. That was the moment I thanked myself for turning on full-disk encryption.
Two really dumb people and Tmobile is going to pay. Also, never trade in your phone. I keep the previous generation as a backup in case I lose or break it, and I take a hammer to the older ones on rotation.
By the time I’m ready to part with a phone, they offer peanuts for the trade in. I might as well keep it and do something else with it
Actually the last few times, Verizon has called me to upgrade for little or no money, sometimes paying more for my old phone than I did when it was new. I asked once why they do it, and it is some sort of loyalty program.
They offered like $800something for a several year old iPhone 11 pro that has had two owners and two separate lives in our family plan with display stuck pixels from a drop and obviously old battery. I was actually taken aback at first and had them verify trade in credit amount at the store for the trade in instead of mailing just in case they were pulling some shit lol
… I pay $20/mo for a repackaged phone service and have never spent more than $200 on an unlocked phone online. Almost all of it for the camera. They run great but the camera sensors could be a little better due to people needing to hold still for photos many times or you get blurring. Especially in low light and if you don’t make sure you lens is clean.
I’d say it’s worth. But I’m also poor lol.
Assuming you are on a plan where there is just a monthly hardware surcharge, you likely pay 20% of the price of the phone up front, and about 200% of the price of the phone by the time they recommend you change hardware. Even a crappy phone is almost a thousand dollars now, and they can still be worth hundreds used after a few years, there are many places older used phones can be sent and sold.
Most of those types of plans have about a 50-75 dollar a month hardware charge built into the plan. A “bring your own device” plan is like 20-30 dollars a month. 50 dollars a month for 2 years is 1200 dollars. 75 dollars a month for 3 years is 2700 dollars. Pretty easy to fit the price of a phone in there somewhere.
Also their favorite customer, is the one that has a hardware fee in their plan, but then buys a new phone themselves from a third party. For people that plan to buy their own phone, make sure you are on a “bring your own device” plan. Save yourself hundreds of dollars a year. I know that part doesn’t pertain to the person I am replying to, but I have talked to alot of people that brought their own device and were still on a 70-115$ monthly phone plan.
The phone company won’t tell you about the other options, you have to ask, and some of the bigger companies don’t even offer a plan without a built-in hardware surcharge. Then you better hope you have another option in your area. Most of the littler phone companies with dumb names aren’t big enough to even offer hardware, so if you were ever curious why their plans can be 1/3rd the price, they are byod plans.
Is this your recent experience with American wireless carriers? I have experience with phone companies and this is not how the big ones work. They did work like this years ago but it’s been a while since they have. The big ones right now have a plan per line and additional charges based on add-ons and device payments. So it’ll be something like $80 phone plan + $20 device payment (for 3 years) + $8 insurance. Once the payment plan is over the plan and addon’s typically remain the same price. If you bring your own phone as a NEW customer the big carriers give you a discount up front or distributed through a monthly credit, but the plan is the same plan. Once the credit runs out it’s the same price as everyone else’s plan.
Example bills:
New customer with no promotional offers: $25 iPhone 15 (I don’t know the actual price for this) $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $113 total
New customer with trade in promotion: $25 iPhone 15 -$25 iPhone 15 $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $88 total (I’m not a Nazi I’m just pretty sure this is the price of the cheapest insurance option)
Existing customer who buys a phone from Craigslist: $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $88 total
New customer that brings their own Craigslist device: $-5 credit for bringing own phone (probably applied for 24-36 months) $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $83 total
Ah fair, last time I used a big carrier was when I found out that they were no longer offering any byod or pay as you go options, so I had to go with one of the little guys if I wanted those options. Which I very much do, as I always buy exactly the phone I want, rather than choosing from a small selection locally.
I haven’t really looked back since, but only hear about it from friends and family that it was still the case. But I would certainly understand if it turns out they don’t do their research and are just placating me.
Edit: and also technically Canada, but probably not much difference. Though as far as I can tell none of the big companies have a 30 dollar plan around here. So not sure how much of it goes to hardware if the price gap is still just as big as it was when I switched. Not sure what else the price difference would be about.
Sometimes they offer crazy promotions. Verizon had a any pixel for a pixel 7 deal. My boss traded in a pixel 1 for like $500 off a 7.
My boss traded in a pixel 1
He probably didn’t realize having Pixel 1 means unlimited lifetime Google Photos backup in original quality… I bought a 50-60$ used one just for that purpose.
Wut. I still have a pixel 1. Hold up.
Ok, for others, the pixel 1 needs to upload the photos so you sync a camera folder with your new phone to p1. Deets: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/02/how-to-google-photos-pixel-free/
you can run octoprint on old phones, that’s pretty fun.
Yep, I’ve had smartphones since 2010, probably about 5 or 6 phones, I think I’ve traded in maybe two. After like 1-2 years they were like “I’ll give you $150 for this phone that you spent $800 for even though it’s in perfect condition” .
I’ll trade when the money is right. iPhone 12 Pro-13 ProMax cost me $60. Yes it was a year old, but for a fresh battery and better tele lens it was worth it. This year I upgraded to a 15 Pro. I get nothing but a new battery and a C charging port (faster processor means little to me), but it cost me only $95 net - less than a battery replacement. For all the limitation of the Apple ecosystem and over-priced hardware, it gets exceptionally favorable trade-in pricing.
Iirc, iPhones reset / overwrite the encryption key so it would take substantial effort for someone to see how many steps I take in a day or to find my vacation photos. It’s probably easier to steal info from my iCloud backup at Apple.
Your trade-in doesn’t count because you paid $60 to get essentially the same exact phone.
Mine was a trade up from std pro to max, plus a longer tele (and maybe 1/3 of a battery). DD went from the 12 to the 13 for $28 on the same trade promo.
Even ignoring the battery value, from a residual value basis a years’ newer phone is worth about $50-75 even on the 3rd or 4th year out, so the bare resale value for both was a wash or better. If I’m getting upgraded for almost nothing out-of-pocket, long term, I’m going to take it.
I hope you remove the batteries first before going at it with the hammer, or else you’re going to be breathing in some really nasty fumes.
Plus damaging the battery could cause it to ignite anywhere between an hour to several days after it takes damage.
And unless you actually destroy the storage, you are in the exact same situation. Also, I assume someone taking a hammer to a device is not recycling it properly.
Phones have a factory reset for a reason
How else are you going to release the magic smoke?
So you bring it to a specialized recycler who will take it off your hands, and then they burn it in a controlled environment where the smoke can go up into the atmosphere and become stars.
Man, that sounds exciting!
Particularly if you’re in someone else’s house, of course.
There’s a whole place outside you can do it also
I rarely upgrade phones, and the last one I smashed had removable batteries. Yeah, I’d figure next upgrade. I’d have to figure something out for my Note 8.
I’ve got a hard nut to crack as well, my Note 9 is peak Samsung and I can’t find a replacement that has stylus, 3.5 mm jack, microSD and capacitive fingerprint scanner (in-display ones suck, at least on A50 from my workplace).
Is the last one an absolute requirement? If not, although I imagine you’re already aware of it, have you considered the Moto G Stylus? It manages the first three details nicely, but I don’t think any of the models have a capacitive fingerprint scanner (may be mistaken, wasn’t a feature I was interested in when looking into these).
Is the last one an absolute requirement?
No, but it must match capacitive reader’s performance.
I’ve just checked the 2023 version of Moto G Stylus and… IPS? Seriously, Motorola? Sorry, devil wears Prada and flagships wear AMOLED.
Oh, yeah. I forgot that G Stylus isn’t supposed to be a flagship. Duh.
Thank you for suggesting something anyway. Guess I’ll stick to the Note 9 and keep fixing it until the world dies.
Way more fun to see tho
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but breaking bad does it
I keep the previous generation as a backup
This is what I thought I could do with my old devices, an S4 and an S5, but shortly after moving my data to each upgraded device the internal EMMC failed on each.
The s4 powers on into some OEM flashing mode (nothing on the screen, just appears as a Qualcomm something when plugged into usb), and the S5 shows this horror inducing message
Spoiler
Well, they discontinue bands, so yeah, my 2g phone got the axe.
Had an iPhone 8 serviced at ubreakifix and I got it back and it opened to the top-level of the Photos app. It was also the time when putting the phone to sleep in Recently Deleted or Hidden sent the app back to the top-level when woken back up.
Lesson learned, inferior parts too due to availability and cost limitations sadly. I didn’t mind the added thickness but I did mind that it could not keep up with my typing speed. Apple services phones without requiring the passcode and I’m disappointed I didn’t dig in my heels more.
i know iphones are user friendly but dude thats a DINOSAUR 🦕
You’re talking to someone who keeps a couple Palm PDAs around!
But more seriously, it worked fine, ran well enough and I got rid of it maybe 14 months ago? I had it for around 4 years at that point and it’s still getting some iOS 16 patches if I had kept it.
It’s not about the user friendliness, it’s about available parts, service, and software support! Just happens to age gracefully for a phone
“Stole” nude images? From a trade-in phone? More like “were handed access to”. I mean, the employee’s an ass, but the customer is in the wrong as well
As someone that had to delete some photos from his Samsung:
Nah, these phones are shitshows that save shit everywhere. I had to delete them three times.
That’s just disregarding the fact that you’re straight up victim blaming. Might as well ask what they were wearing, there is no excuse, just violation.
Might as well ask what they were wearing
They were nude photos, just sayin’
I’m not blaming the victim, the employee did act like an ass. All I’m saying is the victim did not take safety precautions people should take regardless of whether they are trading in their phone or not. If that is victim blaming then I’m victim blaming everyone who has no common sense regarding privacy and mindfull use of electronics.
“I’m not victim blaming”
Proceeds to keep victim blaming
Regardless of the fact that people just forget things sometimes, expecting people that just want a phone to know how to do a factory reset simply isn’t reasonable.
You and I wouldn’t trade it in without wiping it, probably, but we’re mega nerds on the Fediverse. These things seem obvious to us but they simply aren’t that important, or common knowledge, to normal people.
There is, and there only ever is, one person at fault when trust is violated. That there are safeguards you can take is a different discussion.
It’s not common knowledge to delete data on a device you’re getting rid off? What the fuck are you on about?
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Again, the employee should be taken to court and punished. But this case, if anything, proves that one should never assume good faith in humans and always take precautions. That’s why there are privacy and security measures and good practices available in every aspect of our life.
Did the company policy state that they would access your data and save it?
No?
Then you’re normalizing criminal behavior because it’s possible. Was the phone’s data wearing a crop top? Maybe that’s why it was violated.
You’d be right if the company didn’t have policies specifically forbidding this behavior.
