Judging from all the reviews, Apple’s AirTag works well, in fact, it might actually work too well because from the various reports, it seems that the accessory is now being abused for nefarious reasons. Recently, there was a report on how car thieves were using the accessory to track down cars that they’ve tagged, and now it looks like AirTags are being used to stalk people.
This is according to a recent tweet by user Jeana Jeana (account has since been made private) who reported that she had discovered an AirTag hidden in the well in the front passenger wheel of her car. Jeana claims that she discovered the hidden AirTag after she had gone to a bar.
Now, to be fair to Apple, the company was aware of the potential of the AirTag being abused in such a manner and has created a system to prevent such abuse. For example, AirTags that have been separated from its owner can alert other iPhone owners of its presence, which is how Jeana discovered it when her iPhone alerted her via a notification.
AirTags will also play a sound at a random interval after it has been separated from its own after 8-24 hours, so that it will alert the other person to its presence. Another thing is that AirTag serial numbers are also linked to the associated Apple ID, so with a proper court order, police could get Apple to hand over information of the owner of the AirTag if they ever needed to bring them in for questioning.
That being said, while these anti-stalker measures are great, the fact that they only come into effect after the fact doesn’t feel quite preventive enough, plus given how cheap the AirTags are, they are incredibly accessible.
Filed in . Read more about Airtag, Airtags, Privacy and Social Hit. Source: 9to5mac