Former Apple engineer sentenced to prison for stealing drone car data

This week, a court sentenced Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer who was found guilty of stealing trade secrets.

Details

He was first charged back in 2018. As it turns out, Zhang took maternity leave from Apple and visited China during that time. After the trip, he resigned from Apple. At the company, he worked on several products, including developing and testing PCBs capable of analysing sensor data. One area of particular focus was Apple's Project Titan unmanned car technology.

The investigation revealed that the engineer had stolen numerous files from Apple, including a 25-page document with engineering schematics for the circuit board of an unmanned car, and wanted to give them to XMotors, a Chinese startup developing autonomous vehicle technology.

The defendant pleaded guilty in August 2022. He was sentenced this week: 120 days in prison and three years of supervised release. Zhang will also pay restitution of $146,984.

Source: 9to5mac