US prosecutors have accused an Apple employee of attempting to steal trade secrets about the company’s self-driving car project, according to court filings in California.

Jizhong Chen, a hardware engineer on the company’s autonomous car project, has been charged with theft of trade secrets, after another Apple employee reported Mr Chen was taking photographs in a confidential workspace, according to a criminal complaint unsealed this week in federal court.

Apple’s internal investigation team found that the Chinese national had a personal hard drive filled with the company’s proprietary materials, including details of car sensors and custom-built harnesses, the filing said. His phone contained more than 100 photographs of the interior of the building, according to the complaint.