My gf had to take her laptop into the Genius Bar a little while ago for an airport issue. Apparently, a routine part of the intake process is to ask for the user's account password. This pissed me off so much I almost caused a scene in the store.
Obviously, if they have the hardware, they can do pretty much whatever they'd like, so it wasn't that they would be able to use it to look at her personal files or whatever (we had already removed anything personal before bringing it in).
It was that they, acting as a trusted authority, were telling people that it's okay to give away your password. It also means that anyone who uses the same password for their machine as they do for their email or their other accounts is handing their life over. Of course people shouldn't be doing this, but of course very many do, and it's just completely irresponsible of Apple to explicitly put people in a position where this could easily be exploited by some faceless tech behind the counter.
As much as I love their products, I really hate how Apple operates sometimes.
I just create a new account called "applestore" with admin rights. This allows me to give them access to the OS without access to my files (I use FileVault). However, this is something they should be doing on their own instead of asking users to trust them with their password.
Whenever I've had to bring my computer in, they've always told me to create a new account called something like "Apple" or "Apple Store", and they probably should have asked for the same thing from her.
I suppose there are times where the computer won't boot and they really don't have any other choice besides asking you for your password--the employee might have just mixed up their protocol, though that's not to say that it excuses that mistake.
From the anecdotes here, it sounds like that's just smart employees or a manager at your store making that decision. It really should be company policy.
They've never asked me to create a separate account, only turn over the main account. I still don't trust anyone with my user account, and so made one name AppleSupport, and enabled FileVault on my user.
One would think that for a company so concerned with internal privacy they would care a little more for their users...
How is it that they need to know the password in that instance? If the problem is that the computer doesn't boot, they just have to get it to boot, not log in to your profile and start monkeying around.
Everytime I've been in, I've been asked to either disable my password or create an account for the Genius Bar and provide them with that password (or leave it blank).
Obviously, if they have the hardware, they can do pretty much whatever they'd like, so it wasn't that they would be able to use it to look at her personal files or whatever (we had already removed anything personal before bringing it in).
It was that they, acting as a trusted authority, were telling people that it's okay to give away your password. It also means that anyone who uses the same password for their machine as they do for their email or their other accounts is handing their life over. Of course people shouldn't be doing this, but of course very many do, and it's just completely irresponsible of Apple to explicitly put people in a position where this could easily be exploited by some faceless tech behind the counter.
As much as I love their products, I really hate how Apple operates sometimes.