From FoxNews.com…
The Apple AirTag is turning out to be a boon to criminals. Here’s why, and some ways to address unwanted tracking.
The coat-button-sized AirTag, announced in April of last year, is a Bluetooth tracking device, designed to help you find keys, backpacks, wallets, devices, or any personal item you want to track. It tracks things using Apple’s crowdsourced Find My network, which, as of 2021, boasted about 1 billion devices worldwide. It requires iOS 14.5 and iPad iOS 14.5 or newer.
AirTags will help you find a lost item by showing you a map of the location or by playing a sound. If you have an iPhone 11 or later, you can locate the AirTag with Precision Finding, which will lead you right to your AirTag.
Here’s the problem
AirTags are good at what they’re designed to do. The problem is stalkers and thieves quickly figured this out too. And now a growing chorus of voices claim that Apple underestimated the dangers of the device.
Reports show that AirTags are used increasingly for stalking. For example, a Vice investigation revealed that out of a total 150 police reports that mentioned AirTags from eight police departments over an 8-month period, there were 50 cases in which women contacted police because they got notifications that they were being tracked by an AirTag they didn’t own.
“Of those, 25 could identify a man in their lives—ex-partners, husbands, bosses—who they strongly suspected planted the AirTags on their cars in order to follow and harass them,” Vice said.
Another report earlier this year shows how a stalker surreptitiously placed an AirTag in a supermodel’s coat, tracking her for five hours as she went from bar to bar and, later, as she walked home.
And this recent law enforcement video spells out how criminals attach AirTags to vehicles, track the vehicles to the owner’s home, then steal the car at the criminal’s convenience.
