New York State Opens Investigation Into FaceTime Bug
Apple’s problems with that FaceTime bug that allowed people to listen into conversations just got a whole lot worse. Bloomberg is reporting that the New York officials including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Andrew Cuomo are opening an investigation into the FaceTime bug and they will be focusing on Apple’s failure to warn consumers about the bug and its slow response:
This FaceTime breach is a serious threat to the security and privacy of the millions of New Yorkers who have put their trust in Apple and its products over the years,” James said in the statement on Wednesday.
“We need a full accounting of the facts to confirm businesses are abiding by New York consumer protection laws and to help make sure this type of privacy breach does not happen again,” Cuomo said in the statement.
This is on top of being sued by a lawyer who claims that a deposition was eavesdropped upon via this bug. New York State tends to be very aggressive when it comes to this sort of thing and if they determine that Apple did something wrong, it will not end well for Apple. Especially if you consider that they might have known about this bug for some time before acting on it as per this tweet from yours truly:
So according to @MacRumors, Apple who claims to take privacy seriously was told about the #FaceTime bug A WEEK AGO. On the surface it appears that they did nothing until the issue became public yesterday. Total #Fail on the part of Apple. https://t.co/Ys4ZuIYuu5
— The IT Nerd (@The_IT_Nerd) January 29, 2019
Take it from me. Apple is in very deep trouble here and if I were Tim Cook, I would be working night and day to not only get out that software fix ASAP, but to repair what’s left of Apple’s reputation. Because at the moment their reputation is very, very tarnished.
January 31, 2019 at 1:22 pm
[…] go from bad to worse for Apple. After being sued by a lawyer, then having an investigation started by the State of New York, Apple is now facing a class action lawsuit from a Canadian law firm. Montréal-based law firm […]
February 1, 2019 at 10:11 am
[…] least they appear to want to make changes. That I guess they believe will blunt the investigation launched by New York State into their response to this issue. But it won’t help their cause in terms of the two separate lawsuits that have been filed […]
February 7, 2019 at 11:06 am
[…] going to be this week. In the meantime, Apple has been sued, and then sued again. New York State is investigating the bug, and the US Congress is asking some very pointed questions about the bug and how Apple handled it. […]