A woman from California has reported noticing that an Apple store employee had text messaged himself an "extremely personal" photograph of her to himself while he was repairing her broken phone.

Gloria Fuentes visited the store in Bakersfield, California to have her iPhone screen repaired on November 4, and gave her phone to one of the genius bar employees there for technical support.

However, when she returned home with her phone later, she saw to her horror that the employee had found a picture of her and texted it to his own phone number without her permission.

Taking to Facebook to share her uncomfortable experience, Gloria wrote: "So last night, I went to Apple ... to get my phone screen repaired and I got a tech guy named Nic ... I give the guy my phone he’s messing around with it for [quite] a while and I didn’t really pay any mind to it because I just figured he’s doing his job, looking into my insurance info or whatever."

"I walk in my house turn on my phone about to text someone and realize there’s a message to an unsaved number!!!!! I open it and instantly wanted to cry!!! This guy went through my gallery and sent himself one of my EXTREMELY PERSONAL pictures that I took for my boyfriend and it had my geolocation on so he also knows where I live!!! [sic]"

She continued: "I could not express how disgusted I felt and how long I cried after I saw this!! I went back to the store and confronted him and he admits to me that this was his number but that 'he doesn't know how that pic got sent ?!! The manager just said he’d look into it. So I’m going to be pressing legal charges against him."

She added: "I have no idea if he sent more than the picture that he forgot to delete and I have NO CLUE WTH HES GOING TO DO WITH THEM!!! This makes me cry thinking about it but I think he needs to be held accountable and anyone else that has had him work on their phone should be aware of the fact that there’s a possibility that he’s done this to them!! [sic]" 

Commenting on the issue, an Apple spokesperson told The Washington Post: "Apple immediately launched an internal investigation and determined that the employee acted far outside the strict privacy guidelines to which we hold all Apple employees.

"He is no longer associated with our company.”

Meanwhile, Bakersfield police are investigating the incident.

A woman from California has reported noticing that an Apple store employee had text messaged himself an "extremely personal" photograph of her to himself while he was repairing her broken phone.

Gloria Fuentes visited the store in Bakersfield, California to have her iPhone screen repaired on November 4, and gave her phone to one of the genius bar employees there for technical support.

However, when she returned home with her phone later, she saw to her horror that the employee had found a picture of her and texted it to his own phone number without her permission.

Taking to Facebook to share her uncomfortable experience, Gloria wrote: "So last night, I went to Apple ... to get my phone screen repaired and I got a tech guy named Nic ... I give the guy my phone he’s messing around with it for [quite] a while and I didn’t really pay any mind to it because I just figured he’s doing his job, looking into my insurance info or whatever."

"I walk in my house turn on my phone about to text someone and realize there’s a message to an unsaved number!!!!! I open it and instantly wanted to cry!!! This guy went through my gallery and sent himself one of my EXTREMELY PERSONAL pictures that I took for my boyfriend and it had my geolocation on so he also knows where I live!!! [sic]"

She continued: "I could not express how disgusted I felt and how long I cried after I saw this!! I went back to the store and confronted him and he admits to me that this was his number but that 'he doesn't know how that pic got sent ?!! The manager just said he’d look into it. So I’m going to be pressing legal charges against him."

She added: "I have no idea if he sent more than the picture that he forgot to delete and I have NO CLUE WTH HES GOING TO DO WITH THEM!!! This makes me cry thinking about it but I think he needs to be held accountable and anyone else that has had him work on their phone should be aware of the fact that there’s a possibility that he’s done this to them!! [sic]" 

Commenting on the issue, an Apple spokesperson told The Washington Post: "Apple immediately launched an internal investigation and determined that the employee acted far outside the strict privacy guidelines to which we hold all Apple employees.

"He is no longer associated with our company.”

Meanwhile, Bakersfield police are investigating the incident.