Apple security boss leaves after iPhone prototype cock-up

THE HEAD of Apple's notorious security team, John Theriault, has left the company. The reason for the departure of the Vice President of Global Security is unclear, but tech bloggers note that his botched efforts to retrieve a lost prototype iPhone 4S are currently at the centre of an investigation by the San Francisco police.

Theriault's team thought the prototype was in the home of a 22-year-old San Francisco man called Sergio Calderon. It is alleged that four plain-clothed policemen accompanied two Apple security officials to Calderon's home. After some of the group identified themselves as policemen, the two Apple employees entered the house and searched it, while the officers waited outside.

Although the pair did not specifically say they were police, Calderon simply assumed they were and, knowing he had no prototype iPhone in his house, allowed the search.

It is unclear whether the incident is a case of impersonation of a police officer, which carries a penalty of up to a year in prison, but SFPD is reportedly investigating the behaviour of its own employees in the case.

Even before this incident, Theriault's Apple security apparatus was notorious in the tech blogging community.

Gizmodo says the Worldwide Loyalty Team, which Theriault apparently oversaw, is known among some employees as the 'Apple Gestapo'. The first-hand account Gizmodo published in 2009 came complete with tales of moles and security lockdowns on the Apple campus in Cupertino.

But while Apple security had free rein in Cupertino, as Gawker observes, they needed to be more careful in the outside world.

"Leave no fingerprints. That's the way corporate security is supposed to work. But John Theriault left big, messy ones when his Apple security agents penetrated the home of an innocent San Francisco man. Now Theriault is out of a job, and his creepy security department will probably be a lot more careful - about getting caught." ·