British man sues Apple after wife discovers deleted messages with sex worker

Man is now suing Apple for £5m (Representation)

An English businessman is suing Apple after his wife discovered “deleted” messages he sent to sex workers on their family’s iMac. The messages, which he said had been “permanently deleted” from his iPhone, led his wife to file for divorce, the Times reported.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, used iMessage to communicate with sex workers, claiming to have deleted the evidence from his iPhone. However, the messages were still accessible on the iMac thanks to the family’s devices syncing with the same Apple ID.

He claimed that Apple failed to inform users that deleting a message on one device did not delete it from all linked devices. “If you are told that a post is deleted, you have the right to believe that it is deleted,” he told the outlet.

The man’s wife discovered the messages and filed for divorce, a decision which cost her more than 5 million pounds, the Times said. He described the divorce as “painful and raw”, saying a more rational conversation could have saved his marriage if the messages had not been discovered so abruptly.

“If I had been able to talk to her rationally and she hadn’t had such a sudden realization, I might still be married,” he said. “It was a very brutal way to find out (for my wife),” he said.

The man is now suing Apple for £5 million and is seeking to turn his lawsuit into a class action for others who may have faced similar situations.

He explained that Apple’s lack of clarity on how message deletion works led to this situation. “In my opinion, it’s because Apple told me my messages were deleted when they weren’t. If the message had said, ‘These messages are deleted on this device,’ it would have been a hint, or “These messages are deleted”. on this device only, that would have been even better.”

Its lawyer, Simon Walton, told the Telegraph: “Apple has not been clear with users about what happens to the messages they send and receive and, importantly, delete. »

Mr. Walton said that in many cases the iPhone informs the user that “messages have been deleted”, which he said was not true and was “misleading because they are still on other related devices – what Apple doesn’t tell its users ” He said he was “looking forward to hearing from other Apple customers who have experienced similar issues.”