Suspected Unauthorized Developer Access to My iPad – Privacy and Security Concerns

I've seen this fairly frequently here of late. That is, the idea that a "developer" is some sort of special, nefarious person with extraordinary skills that somehow allows them to access a device they've never touched.

Developer is just another general name for programmer. It's nothing special. Either way you want to say it, it's a person who writes apps.

Unless you chose to install some unknown app, no one has direct access to your iPad.

1. You would pretty much have to compromise your own iPad by jailbreaking it and installing questionable software.
2. Only in the sense of apps created by people with an Apple developer account. Each app a developer creates is signed. In the event a rogue app somehow makes it through Apple's testing before being allowed on the App Store, Apple can go as far as disabling the app on any device it's installed on. This is very, very rare.
3. Apps in iOS are sandboxed. They cannot touch anything outside of their own application package.
4. Have you seen any changes? If you do (such as photos missing you know you didn't remove), it's about a billion percent more likely someone has access to your Apple account by knowing both your user name and password. With that info, they can access your iCloud data from any other device just as easily as you. Accessing your iPad directly is extremely difficult, and costs over a million dollars to attempt access to ONE device.
5. This comes back to jailbreaking the iPad before any of that is possible and creating such a mess all by yourself. Anything you mention requires being able to physically hold and use the iPad to install anything like that.
6. No. They are not law enforcement. An Apple employee may take a look at it if you take the iPad to an Apple Store and let a Genius look it over. But they aren't going to do any kind of forensic work there.
7. Use a difficult to guess password. Don't tell anyone else what it is.

I take my privacy and personal security very seriously.

So does everyone else. In order to use the internet, you have to access it. Along with that there is always the chance, no matter how remote, that someday your personal data may be acquired. To truly avoid that, you'd have to get rid of anything with internet access, including your credit cards. This includes paying for everything with cash only and going down to a wired landline phone. Or at minimum, a dumb flip phone that can only make/receive calls and/or texts.

Oh, and no bank accounts, or any other type of financial accounts. Those businesses put your personal data on their servers, which always have the possibility of being compromised. Insist on being paid in cash only. Put all of your money in a mattress. And this still doesn't remove the government's records they require for Social Security, taxes and what-not. Then there's your driver's license. Another item with your personal data on a server somewhere. Or the post office or any delivery service knowing where you work or live so they can get correspondence and packages to you. Like your electric bill. Another company with your personal data on a server.

You can see just from this how impossible it is to attain the kind of security you seem to be looking for.

1. Is there a way to determine whether someone has installed a developer profile or has developer access to my iPad?

If you don’t know this, then why are you suggesting the developer angle? What clues do you have?

7. How can I secure my iPad so that nobody else can access my photographs, banking information, medical information, or personal files?

Be sure that only you know the device unlock code (iPad: Settings﹥Passcode﹥) and Apple Account password. Have two-factor authentication activated. Have a strong password, that would take a super long time to break brute force. Don’t have notes with password and codes lying around for others to find.

Reset the unlock code and Apple Account password to something different if you think those would be compromised.

Security and your Apple Account - Apple Support

Re: “… I take my privacy and personal security very seriously …”

Most of us here take it very seriously as well.

In addition to the replies already offered …

… yiu might find this document helpful for your immediate concerns:

Personal Safety User Guide - Apple Support

Then, for ongoing self-education, this document is hard to beat:

Apple Platform Security - Apple Support