AppleCare accessed my personal files

I would recomend using filevault2 in the future if you want to protect data on your system when sending it for repair.

Basically, Apple can wipe your drive or boot the machine in order to find the root cause of the problem so anything on the drive could be either lost or accessed for testing during the process depending on the nature of the problem.

You can also use apps like SuperDuper to clone your internal drive to an external drive and wipe the internal manually using the disk utility if you do not want to use encryption. Once the machine comes back, you can boot it from your cloned drive and clone its contents back to the internal drive in your laptop. Either way, keeping an up to date backup of your machine is essential when sending it in for repair as there is no gaurentee the data will remain intact on the internal drive.

How can you tell?

Apple takes customer privacy very seriously, so it's deeply instilled in most people in the company that this is a huge no-no if they want to keep their job.

That being said, there are legitimate situations where your data would be accessed. For example, after replacing your speakers, the technician might verify that iTunes plays properly.

They may have opened iPhoto in order to test the graphics, and played an iTunes file in order to test the speakers. This is not unusual, since the speakers are frequently disconnected to get at other components and must be tested again upon reassembly.

I'm not saying that you don't have a foundation to complain. You certainly do, and you should. Use the survey they sent you to get some attention. You might get a call from an AppleCare manager.

But the bottom line is, the paperwork you signed when you gave them your computer clearly states that they're not responsible for your data, including any breaches of your data during the repair process.

If I were you, I would take Atlantis888's advice, make sure none of your data is missing, and carry on.

Atlantis888 has the right idea. That is exactly what I do when I send in my hardware for repair.

If you were that worried someone would access your data, I'm confused as to why you would give it to them in the first place.

I don't want Apple looking at my data either. That's why I wipe the drive before I send it in.

If there was an issue with your GPU (graphics chip) then they would have swapped out the motherboard. Essentially they would have gutted your machine because the GPU can not be replaced seperately. In such case they would be testing sound, graphics, memory, etc so if they had a bootable OS already available on the local drive, I am sure they would use it and assocaited apps for testing. I would highly recommend going with filevault2 for encryption. I've been testing it heavily on multiple machines and it seems very solid.

Something else to consider: As laptops are mobile devices, there's always a chance they could get lost or stolen as well. Filevault2 is a good way to protect your data as it encrypts the entire drive.

I work supporting government accounts, sometimes with PHI (personal health information) somewhere on the disk.

If I did not have encryption in place to protect the client's data, I would be fired -- and rightfully so!

Consider yourself the contractor dealing with the client's (YOUR!) data. Ask yourself if you can really explain the loss of the client's bank account and credit card account numbers due to theft (MBP is $2000 -- do you think I would ever let it leave my sight in public?) or "looky-loo"s?

Actually, they will just pave over your internal drive with a fresh OS install if they need to. If they ask you to turn filevault2 off, it would only be to save the technician's time (avoiding a reinstall). You don't have to turn it off.

Cloning and wiping the drive is my usual method; however, I am also using filevault2 now since its avaialble and works.

Also, if my internal drive fails or becomes only partially functional, I can be assured that my data wont easily end up in the wrong hands on its way to the landfill once the drive gets discarded by Apple.

iMac users especially, with internal hard drives, should really think about that drive failure scenerio since is a nightmare to open the machine to replace it yourself.

Either way, make a backup.

Sean Ray aka DJ Ducky wrote:

So I just got my machine back from some hardware repairs and some tech at AppleCare clearly accessed my personal photos and music, not sure how to handle this.

You took your machine into them and let them have access to your data.

If you had data of a personal nature you should have:

1: Kept the data on a external drive or a Iron Key.

2: Removed the storage device from computer before bringing it in.

3: Use a local private service that will work in front of you to extract and remove your data or storage device.

4: Don't buy a computer or device where you can't extract the storage or securely wipe it in a independent private manner if it fails to function without voiding your warranty.

For instance Solid State Drives in a lot of new Mac's, most all iPods, iPhones and iPads can NOT be reliably erased. You only option is to encrypt the whole thing and then that only keeps those who don't have the right device/hardware keys from accessing.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/02/17/1911217/Confidential-Data-Not-Safe-O n-Solid-State-Disks

Once data are on SSD's it stays there until overwritten, there is no "zero free space option", there is a device investigators can use to access everything on SSD (HDD too), even retrieving your password which companies like Apple, Microsoft, and the like provide them with, which the encrypted SSD image can be decoded later.

http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/forensic-products.html?loc=seg

There is absolutely no privacy and although on some of Apple's devices and a bit of tech know how can assist in keeping one's private data truly private, eventually that won't be the case as the industry is working with paranoid governments with weapons of mass destruction and jointly against retard terrorists. So citizens right to privacy has basically gone out the window. They track every cell phone 8 times a hour and record the GPS coordinates. The ISP keeps log files of all connections computers makes for a year and turns these over to the government regulary.

Don't use a electronic device for anything private, because it's likely giving up anything it can to someone else. Dont' use a computer online, especially anything from Google, because it's giving up tons of information about what you do online or with your computer.

Since your nick says your a DJ, it's very highly likely they got a copy of all your music. I know they did for mine as I saw the looks on their faces when they returned my computer to me.

What can one do? Nothing, as long as you got to trust them and can't watch what they are doing.

ds store

Heady stuff. Paranoid as he-double-toothpicks. But anyone who read my answer to the woman with the secret-hacker boyfriend will know I understand paranoid.

Encrypting with filevault to make it unreadable by default will apparently not be worth the effort soon. Keeping data on any local-only drive only works if you sterr clear of the internet and the secret-spyware.

Did anybody hear that the US Postal Service is shutting down branches because people do banking online more and more? Did someone mention secret-internet-spyware?

How long until most if not all activity is online? Already people check bank balances using cell phones.

I have successfully made myself look over my shoulder too much already writing this. Let us hope "ds store" is not as correct as he probably is.

Look, are we talking about keeping the data out of the hands of people who shouldnt have it or are we talking about trying to keep it from a spy agency? Lets be realistic here.

No computer or storage system is ever 100% secure with the likes of spooks involved but wiping the drive and/or encrypting it is a pretty reasonable thing to do for the rest of us who live in the normal world.

The only other alternative is to destroy your hard drive or SSD when it fails or put a new blank drive in the machine before sending it in. Neither scenerio is really realistic for the normal citizen.

Unless you are a spy, just encrypt the drive and/or do the clone + wipe. It's better than tin foil hats.

Atlantis888 wrote:

Look, are we talking about keeping the data out of the hands of people who shouldnt have it or are we talking about trying to keep it from a spy agency?

It's the same thing, if you don't want anyone to know about it or access it, then don't put it on a device that they can, or if you do and it breaks,, don't expect to get it fixed.

Spy's come in all kinds, from mothers wanting to track their kids, to jealous spouses, to fellow friends, to co-workers, to corporate spies, to hackers looking to profit, to downright James Bond types, and yes your local computer repair guy who just eyeballed your 100,000 song strong iTunes Music collection.

Most IT techs I know most certainly are going to look through your stuff and check out what you have been doing online. They are smart and having been stuck repairs computers for a lousy wage, so they most certainly are looking for a gold mine of data to retire with.

So if you can't physically remove the storage or want to destroy the device with no removable storage, then your just going to have to live with the fact that someone else is going to look at your stuff.

... for the rest of us who live in the normal world.

In the normal world everyone is a spy.

The only other alternative is to destroy your hard drive or SSD when it fails or put a new blank drive in the machine before sending it in. Neither scenerio is really realistic for the normal citizen.

Then the normal citizen can't be placing their private data on machines they can't physically take if off of, because computers fail to work mechanically, there would be no way to take it off via software.

Encryption is lame alternative when only they (or the people they give it too) have the keys, and some devices have ot be decrypted for repairs to be performed if possible, else they replace the storage and you lost all your files, contacts etc.

Unless you are a spy, just encrypt the drive...

This is a substancial performance robbing course, as everything has to be encrypted and decrypted back and forth to the storage device by the CPU.

Also one can't access the data if they want to by themselves using alternate means, say they extract the drive themselves if the computer died and they don't want to pay to get it fixed, but need to grab files to transfer to a new computer.

Some opt to create disk image in Disk Utility and encrypt select files in that instead of the whole drive, leaving files they don't care that others see or access out in the open.

The encrypted image can be transferred to another machine and decrypted there.

A external drive is perhaps best, it wouldn't need encryption unless the files were very sensitive and it's off the device.

...or do the clone + wipe.

One should be maintianing a hold option bootable clone (Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper) regardless as the computer may not boot from a failed part or disk, but will boot from the clone.

At least with the clone one can decide to trash the old machine and get a new one, the clone won't boot on a different model, but the files and everything could be accessed.

Atlantis888 wrote:

Actually, they will just pave over your internal drive with a fresh OS install if they need to. If they ask you to turn filevault2 off, it would only be to save the technician's time (avoiding a reinstall). You don't have to turn it off.

Cloning and wiping the drive is my usual method; however, I am also using filevault2 now since its avaialble and works.

Also, if my internal drive fails or becomes only partially functional, I can be assured that my data wont easily end up in the wrong hands on its way to the landfill once the drive gets discarded by Apple.

iMac users especially, with internal hard drives, should really think about that drive failure scenerio since is a nightmare to open the machine to replace it yourself.

Either way, make a backup.

So exactly what are you saying you do if your internal drive fails? If It's failed as in dead, won't spin up at all, you can't zero it out/wipe it and you don't want to open it up to remove it, since it's covered under AC, or it's just too prickly a job on the new iMacs?

What, then, gives you any reassurance your data won't easily end up in the wrong hands on its way to the landfill....?

Re-reading, did you mean you're safe even if the drive dies because you set it up with FV2? I don't trust FV on 10.6, which is what I'm running. I've thought about putting sensitive data in an encrypted disk image, but I don't have complete trust it won't ever become corrupted, inaccessible and lost forever.

Whole-disk encryption using FileVault 2 in 10.7 is much more stable and trustworthy than user-account encryption using FileVault in 10.6.

If you want to really get technical, you can read Siracusa's review of the file system changes in Lion, but the bottom line is your encrypted files are safer on 10.7.

Getting back to the original post, I think we can summarize by saying there are two sides to this story:

1) You are responsible for the security of your own data. If you don't want people looking at your stuff, do what it takes to keep them out. At a very basic level, all you have to do is create a temporary "apple" account for them to log into during repairs. If you're into tinfoil hats, you can do a multipass wipe before sending it to them. Either way, it's on you.

2) It's Apple's responsibility to hire people with a decent set of ethics, and instill complete respect for customer privacy into them during the training process. I would think technicians with malicious intent will tend to have very short careers.

If you feel Apple let you down on #2, it's your right to raise the subject through the proper channels. But it sounds to me like you could have done more of #1, given your high expectation of privacy.

I hope you find my advice useful and objective, but it's just advice from a guy on a forum. :-)