Unauthorized Repair Using Applecare

Debra7713 wrote:

...Should Apple return the (original) Hard Drive when replacing it? ....

There is no hard drive. It is actually an SSD and it is soldered to the logic board, so the two cannot be replaced separately.

If additional issues were found and covered by warranty, they can replace such items as needed. They really only need to notify if a repair is going to incur a charge for the customer.

Also, under warranty repairs, it is Apple policy that any defective parts are kept by Apple for failure analysis and the recycled.

The 2019+ laptops have the data on their SSDs hardware encrypted so the data is as safe as the password(s) used for the user accounts to authenticate the user.

Apple assumes users have good backups and as others have noted, Apple will replace anything they wish without asking if it does not incur any extra cost to the user. You already gave Apple permission to repair the laptop and notice about data loss would have been in the fine print whether the Apple representative explicitly mentioned it or not. FYI, even if Apple did not replace the Logic Board, they still need to reprogram the T2 security chip after a repair which could potentially cause data loss if something goes wrong. Plus Apple has been known to perform a clean install of macOS during repairs if the tech notices a problem during the repair.

FYI, you can enable Filevault as an extra layer of protection to require a password to unlock the Mac.

About encrypted storage on your new Mac - Apple Support

You should always have frequent and regular backups.

Whether or not they should have notified you before any discovery repairs depends solely on what you agreed on at the time. You may have unwittingly approved the discovery work. You may not have.

This is a tough situation. Yes, your data may be at risk. That's always a risk when you turn live data over to anybody.

[Edited by Moderator]

Provided you encrypted its startup disk with FileVault, its data are irretrievable and utterly useless to anyone without its encryption key.

Use FileVault to encrypt the startup disk on your Mac - Apple Support