--- title: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send... description: A former 16-year Apple engineer, Toby Boardman, alleges he was fired in retaliation for refusing to fulfill AT&T requests for IMEI numbers mapped from device... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T | daily.dev og:description: A former 16-year Apple engineer, Toby Boardman, alleges he was fired in retaliation for refusing to fulfill AT&T requests for IMEI numbers mapped from device... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/FYfocHERM.png og:image:alt: Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 19 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A former 16-year Apple engineer, Toby Boardman, alleges he was fired in retaliation for refusing to fulfill AT&T requests for IMEI numbers mapped from device serial numbers without required customer consent releases. He claims Apple's AT&T account representative bypassed an internal policy requiring customer authorization before sharing device identifiers, and that data was transmitted via unsecured email in batches of up to 1,000 devices. After raising concerns with management and Apple Legal and receiving no written response, he was told to 'stop being a pain.' He also disclosed OCD and anxiety, and alleges Apple failed to provide accommodations before terminating him days after he returned from protected medical leave. Apple denies wrongdoing, citing just cause for termination. A jury trial is scheduled for November 2027. No court has yet found Apple or AT&T liable, and key evidence — including the internal policy, the original report, and the disputed emails — has not yet entered the public record. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 46 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-08-04). **TL;DR:** The HN community is largely skeptical that the engineer will win his case, debating whether Apple violated any laws and whether the employee followed proper internal channels; a minority sympathize with his stand on privacy principles. **Sentiment:** 10% positive · 35% mixed · 55% skeptical **The case for** - He reportedly did contact Apple's legal team before being fired, which complicates the 'just follow orders' argument. - Whistleblower retaliation and disability discrimination statutes may offer him legal protection even if no consumer privacy law was broken. - The case highlights a real gap in US law around defining what data employees can be compelled to share without customer consent. **The pushback** - Commenters broadly expect him to lose because Apple has better lawyers and the data involved (IMEI/serial mapping) is not a protected class under US law. - Apple's internal policy, even if violated, is a contract matter not enforceable by state courts in the way he's framing it. - Several commenters note HR and legal departments exist to protect the company, not the employee, so his escalation path was unlikely to help him. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Most commenters doubt the engineer will prevail legally, though some acknowledge the case raises legitimate privacy and whistleblower-protection questions. **Hottest debate:** Whether the engineer had a viable legal claim given that IMEI-to-serial mapping is not a formally protected data class under US law, versus whether whistleblower statutes protect him regardless. **Open questions** - Does Apple's internal classification of IMEIs/serials as PII create any enforceable legal obligation beyond a contract dispute? - What 'required customer releases' does the plaintiff allege were missing, and do those implicate any existing statute? - Why did Apple's legal team not intervene after being notified, and does that inaction affect liability? **Highlights** > The employee didn’t have a contract with Apple so it isn’t a contract dispute. These would be statutory causes of action (also civil, but different than contract law) based on the claims in the suit. The plaintiff alleges Apple broke the law, but specifically whistleblower retaliation and disability discrimination statutes, not consumer privacy laws (which is sort of a secondary concern to the whistleblower claim, since those protections can apply even if no law was actually broken). > — [karagenit on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156606) > At any large employer you sign an agreement to follow the employee handbook and internal policies. They all say the same thing: don't violate the policies even if directed to by your manager. In this case Apple's legal department had identified the serials and IMEIs as PII. This is why the case is in civil court and not criminal (because Apple didn't violate any "laws" as you claim). It is a contract dispute. > — [mike\_d on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150936) > Boardman notified Apple’s legal team. At that point it was their decision to make. If they had told him to stop, that’d be one thing. But they didn’t, and it wasn’t up to Boardman to interpret the policy differently. > — [otterley on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151703) > There's a non-zero chance that Apple might settle if this gets sufficient media coverage, rather than letting it drag on for years making headlines and causing PR damage that exceeds what it would take to buy him off. Even if not illegal, this is surely not the kind of headline Apple wants to be in the news for. > — [applfanboysbgon on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150877) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150738) · 58 points · 46 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Apple alerts exploit developer that his iPhone was targeted with government spyware](https://daily.dev/posts/apple-alerts-exploit-developer-that-his-iphone-was-targeted-with-government-spyware-vadlauxk2) · TechCrunch · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [My Email to Tim Cook](https://daily.dev/posts/my-email-to-tim-cook-dpuhz03d2) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [20 Years of Digital Life, Gone in an Instant, thanks to Apple](https://daily.dev/posts/20-years-of-digital-life-gone-in-an-instant-thanks-to-apple-uifzrhr5t) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#apple](https://daily.dev/tags/apple), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm"},"datePublished":"2026-08-03T03:32:59.525Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T12:27:29.032Z","description":"A former 16-year Apple engineer, Toby Boardman, alleges he was fired in retaliation for refusing to fulfill AT&T requests for IMEI numbers mapped from device...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/20679ea773601ac3423bf51fb591b1af?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/20679ea773601ac3423bf51fb591b1af?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/apple-engineer-says-he-was-fired-after-refusing-to-send-cust-device-ids-to-at-t-fyfocherm","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"apple,privacy","timeRequired":"PT19M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Apple engineer says he was fired after refusing to send cust. device IDs to AT&T"}]} ```