Last year, Apple unveiled its AirTag invention to help its customers keep track of their missing items. The wireless dollar-sized device can be attached to users’ keys, wallets, purses or even the car. Using Bluetooth technology, Apple is able to triangulate the data surrounding the chip to give the current location of the AirTag.
In recent police records reviewed by Motherboard, security experts’ predictions have been proven correct. AirTags have been a major tool used by users to stalk and harass women. Vice reports that the data has seen one-third of 150 total police reports in the past eight months have mentioned AirTags as a root issue. Women reported to the police that they began receiving notifications that someone was tracking their whereabouts with an AirTag they did not own. Half of those cases were identified to be men in their lives including ex-partners, husbands as well as bosses. Specifically, these women have reported that their current and former intimate partners were most likely the people using the AirTags to stalk or harass them.
Some cases involved exes placing AirTags in their previous partner’s cars. One only realized she was being tracked when she found an AirTag beeping in her car. Women have identified that often their partners were concerned of there whereabouts and wanted to see if they were “cheating.” Multiple women who filed these reports feared the physical violence that could occur from the invasion of privacy. While not all cases involved ex-partners, there was an overwhelming number of reports that have come from women who feared for their safety. Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s executive director Albert Fox Cahn said,
“Stalking and stalkerware existed before AirTags, but Apple made it cheaper and easier than ever for abusers and attackers to track their targets.
Apple’s global device network gives AirTags unique power to stalk around the world. And Apple’s massive marketing campaign has helped highlight this type of technology to stalkers and abusers who’d never otherwise know about it.”
Despite Apple’s safety features, it appears that the tech giant has not quite figured out how to hone in the AirTag abilities to ensure consumers are not harmed.
In case you missed it, the DOJ recently seized $34 million USD worth of cryptocurrency from a dark web hacker.
wazup.