The US Department of Justice has charged a former Apple engineer with stealing the company’s technology secrets and fleeing to China.
35-year-old Weibao Wang started working at Apple’s Californian base in 2016, before accepting a US-based job with a Chinese company the following year, according to an indictment.
Wang’s new role was for a company working on self-driving vehicle technology; at Apple he worked in Apple’s automotive team, working on the top-secret ‘Project Titan’.
The documents allege that Wang waited around four months before informing Apple of his new position at the rival company.
After he had left the company, Apple discovered he had accessed massive amounts of proprietary data in his final days there. Federal agents later found “large quantities” of this data during a June 2018 search of his property.
Within days, Wang had fled to China.
“We stand vigilant in enforcing US laws to stop the flow of sensitive technologies to our foreign adversaries,” Matt Olsen, the head of the justice department’s national security division, told reporters.
“We are committed to doing all we can to prevent these advanced tools from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries.”
Apple is yet to comment publicly on the case.
