Toby Boardman, an Enterprise Systems Engineer at Apple, alleges he was terminated in retaliation for refusing requests to share customer device identifiers with AT&T, according to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court in January 2026.
Boardman says that as part of Apple’s technical support for wireless carriers, he received recurring requests to convert device serial numbers into International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers—identifiers capable of pinpointing individual phones on a network. Some requests involved single devices; others involved batches of up to 1,000 devices, according to the complaint.
According to Boardman’s allegations, Apple classified serial numbers and IMEIs as personally identifiable information under its internal policies. The complaint states that Apple representatives working with carriers other than AT&T required customers to provide written consent before the company supplied such data. However, the Apple representative assigned to AT&T did not enforce this requirement, and the identifiers were transmitted via “unsecured email communications,” Boardman alleges.
Boardman reported the practice to his manager, Meg Fisher, and sought guidance from Apple’s legal department. He claims Fisher told him to “stop being a pain” and move on. Instead, Boardman began refusing the AT&T requests.
After returning from a month of protected medical leave in June 2024—during which he had requested accommodations for anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder—Apple placed a meeting on Boardman’s calendar. The company fired him the next day, June 11, 2024, citing performance issues. Boardman contends the termination was pretextual retaliation for his privacy objections.
The lawsuit names Apple and two of Boardman’s former managers as defendants. Apple filed a general denial in March 2026 and stated Boardman was terminated for “just cause and business reasons” without specifically addressing the IMEI allegations. Judge Rochelle East scheduled a jury trial for November 15, 2027.
No court has yet determined whether Apple or AT&T mishandled customer information, whether customer releases were legally required, or whether Boardman’s termination was retaliatory. The public case file does not contain the disputed emails, Boardman’s internal report, Apple’s privacy policy, or examples of affected customers.
Key facts
- Boardman claims Apple sent customer device identifiers (IMEIs) to AT&T without required consent, via unsecured email
- He alleges other carriers required written customer consent before Apple shared similar data
- Boardman says his manager told him to stop raising the privacy concern
- He was fired in June 2024 shortly after returning from medical leave; Apple cited performance reasons
- The lawsuit was filed January 22, 2026, in San Francisco Superior Court; trial is scheduled for November 2027
- No court has yet found misconduct or that the termination was retaliatory