When an employee is no longer with the company and their iPad is still linked to their iTunes account, how can we unlink it when we cannot contact the employee?

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Level 1

9 points

When an employee is no longer with the company and their iPad is still linked to their iTunes account, how can we unlink it when we cannot contact the employee?

I am the IT support for a big company and we use a lot of iPad's. The one problem we are running into is when an employee leaves the company and their i Pad is still link, we need to use this iPad for another employe but we are unable to wipe it and start from factory cause it wants us to log into their itunes account. If they used their work email to set up their iTunes account this is not an issue as we can access their work email. But if they use their personal email and we do not have a way to contact them then this becomes a big issue. Is there any work around with this at all?

iPad 2, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Jan 21, 2014 10:03 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Jan 21, 2014 10:20 AM in response to athmene

Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414 - "You can use iTunes to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to factory settings and the latest version of iOS. Restoring iOS software deletes all your data and content from your device, including songs, videos, contacts, photos, and calendar info."

You may encounter problems fully restoring if Activation Lock is active - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818

iCloud: Find My iPhone Activation Lock in iOS 7 - With iOS 7, Find My iPhone includes a new feature called Activation Lock, which is designed to prevent anyone else from using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch if you ever lose it. With Activation Lock, your Apple ID and password will be required before anyone can:

Turn off Find My iPhone on your device
Erase your device
Reactivate and use your device

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Answer 2

athmene Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 21, 2014 10:20 AM in response to Limnos

Limnos,

Thank very much for your reply, my issue is not how to wipe it it is how to remove the device from someones iTunes account when I do not have contact with the user.

If the device is still linked even if you wipe it, as you are setting up the device as a new device it is going to tell you that the device is attached to an account and you need to log and and verify that account first. Please see the below image.

Thanks,

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Jan 21, 2014 10:23 AM in response to athmene

See my edited reply above. Read the FAQ part of the link. You may now have a brick. 😟

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Answer 4

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Jan 21, 2014 10:40 AM in response to athmene

For this reason some companies set up iOS devices themselves with company email addresses and lock the Restrictions so employees can't change the Find My iPhone settings to a personal ID. Some companies also withhold a final paycheck until all equipment has been returned and verified to be working and fully accessible.

If your case, if you can't contact the employee and have no recourse for forcing such a contact such as witholding a last paycheck, then you may be stuck. It's been reported that a business can contact Apple and provide proof of ownership of the device and there may be something Apple can do, but that's not been verified so I can't say with certainty, nor what they can do in such a case. It's worth calling Apple Support and asking, though, if you indeed can't reach the employee or can't get them to cooperate.

Regards.

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Answer 5

steve359

Level 6

17,169 points

Jan 21, 2014 10:49 AM in response to athmene

From an employee perspective (hopefully not the only one in the world who actually likes a disconnect between personal and work) ...

I use my work devices for *work*. I do not like to install anything personal, except maybe a different browser. But even if a different browser I am very aware of how I may allow untrusted sites/data/applications into the company VPN-sphere.

I would ask the company to lock their device into "their profile" mode for anything I could be help accountable for, software-related. And especially hardware related, where the device could be bricked if not cleanly detached.

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Answer 6

athmene Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 21, 2014 11:24 AM in response to athmene

Thanks all for all your comments, I was on the phone with Apple as you were commenting.

Yes they can remove the lock if you are able to supply enough info to them. It does take 2-4 business days to do so not going to help me now when I need to give these iPad's out now but for future reference just contact Apple. We do have a lot of Apps/Features locked down on the iPads, we use a service called Trellia to manage all iOS and Android devices. We are currently looking to see if we can use it to disable the find my phone/activation lock feature. This is a new feature with iOS 7 so we were not aware of the implications at the time. Hopefully going forward we will be able to lock the features.

Thanks all again for your replies.

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