A man from England is planning to sue tech giant Apple after ‘deleted text messages’ he sent to sex workers were discovered by his wife.
The man claimed that Apple’s lack of transparency over deleted messages has led to his wife finding out about his infidelity, resulting in a costly divorce settlement.
The couple had been married for more than 20 years.
The man is now pursuing legal action against the tech giant for the more than £5 million he lost in his divorce and through legal costs, claiming that the company does not make it clear that deleted messages can appear on other linked Apple devices, even after being deleted on the iPhone.
The man revealed to The Times that he had turned to sex workers in the final years of his marriage. He would contact them via the iMessages app on his iPhone before deleting the incriminating texts.
But when his wife clicked on the same app on the family’s iMac, she discovered supposedly deleted messages stretching back several years, and filed for divorce.
He told The Times: “If you are told a message is deleted, you are entitled to believe it’s deleted.”
“It’s all quite painful and quite raw still. It was a very brutal way of finding out [for my wife]. My thoughts are, if I had been able to talk to her rationally and she had not had such a brutal realisation of it, I might still be married.’