Are Apple AirTags Being Used To Track People and Steal Cars?

Do you work on the project on the project repository? You can use this tool to automatically sync your releases to SourceForge, so that you can take advantage of SourceForge's massive reach, and you can keep using GitHub.



The story is 157007647.

Msmash posted on Thursday December 30, 2021, from the closer-look dept.

Privacy groups were concerned about the location- tracking devices. People are worried that their fears are being realized. A report states that on a Sunday night in September, a friend's friend, named Ashly, received a strange notification on her phone: "AirTag Detected Near You." An AirTag is a 1.26-inch disc with location- tracking capabilities that Apple started selling earlier this year as a way to keep track of your stuff. Ms. Estrada and her friends didn't own one. The notification on her phone said the AirTag had been spotted. A map of the AirTag's history showed the zigzag path Ms. Estrada had traveled. She said she felt violated. I felt like someone was following me. What was their intent to me? It was frightening.

Ms. Estrada is not the only one. In the last few months, people have posted on various websites about finding AirTags on their cars and belongings. Privacy groups predicted when Apple introduced the devices in April that they would be used to a new form of stalking. The New York Times spoke with seven women who believe they were tracked with AirTags, including a 17-year-old whose mother placed one on her car to stay apprised of her whereabouts. The threat posed by AirTags has prompted some authorities to take a closer look. The AirTag was found on a car bumper, and the police warned the community of the tracking potential of the devices. The AirTag may be charged after Apple complied with a subpoena for information. The police department in Canada said that it had investigated five incidents of thieves placing AirTags on high-end vehicles so they could steal them. Researchers believe that AirTags, which are equipped with technology, could show a more widespread problem of tech-enabled tracking.