Former Apple Employee Flees To China After Allegedly Stealing Self-Driving Car Data

A former Apple software engineer has fled to China after allegedly stealing or trying to steal the company's tech for at least four months before resigning from the tech giant. According to the US Department of Justice, Weibao Wang, 35, shared Apple's information with an unknown Chinese company working on developing self-driving cars.

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How did Wang steal secrets?

Wang began working for Apple in 2016 as part of its annotation team and received "broad access" to the company's databases that only 2,700 of company's 135,000 employees have access to, the indictment states. It appears that Wang worked for Apple for a year before turning in his resignation in April 2018. During his exit interview, he did not inform his supervisor of his future plans.

Later, it was found that Wang had accepted a full-time staff engineer position at a China-based company four months before handing in his resignation. A month after Wang had left Apple, company representatives found that Wang had accessed databases containing sensitive information relating to its autonomous systems' software.

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When Wang's California home was searched, "several personal devices containing large quantities of data taken from Apple prior to his departure" were found. The indictment added that "personal desktop computer and personal external hard drive each contained various confidential, proprietary materials from the project."

At the time, Wang assured authorities hat he had no plans to leave the country. But it was found that he had bought a one-way plane ticket to Guangzhou, China from San Francisco International Airport later the same day, Gizmodo reported.

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Wang is now the third Apple employee to face charges of stealing autonomous trade data and sharing it with China after Xiaolang Zhang and Jizhong Chen. Wang has been charged with six separate counts for allegedly stealing or trying to steal Apple's confidential data relating to self-driving cars. He could face ten years in prison for each count if extradited from China and convicted.

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