The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that former Apple software engineer Weibao Wang has been charged with the theft of autonomous vehicle technology from Apple. The DOJ accuses Wang of taking the technology to benefit a Chinese self-driving car company. Following the initiation of investigations into his actions, Wang fled to China.
According to the DOJ’s indictment, Wang was employed by Apple from 2016 to 2018. During this time, he served on the company’s Annotation Team, granting him access to exclusive databases limited to a select few employees, as reported by CNBC.
After working with Apple for more than a year, and four months before he left, Wang accepted a job with an unnamed Chinese company specializing driverless vehicles. After he left his post, Apple discovered that Wang had accessed a large amount of proprietary data, the Justice Department said.
Read: Apple’s Californian Autonomous Car Program Is Larger Than Both Tesla’s And Mercedes’ Efforts
Wang is being accused of attempting to steal Apple’s “entire autonomy source code,” along with its tracking systems, behavior planning for autonomous systems, and information regarding the hardware supporting these systems.
In June 2018, law enforcement conducted a search at Wang’s residence in California and discovered significant amounts of stolen, confidential, and proprietary data, according to the DOJ. Despite making assurances that he would not flee, Wang departed for China shortly after the search and is currently evading authorities.
If he is extradited and found guilty, he faces 10 years in prison for each count he is charged with. This is the second time that Apple’s driverless vehicle data has allegedly been stolen. Last year, another company employee, Xiaolang Zhang, pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from its autonomous division.
Apple has been working on autonomous vehicle technology since 2014. However, reports suggest that the project has been a tumultuous one, and the company is not expected to show the technology off to the public until at least 2026.
