Boyfriend tracks girlfriend with AirTag; new status: ex-boyfriend.

[Colstan]

A 19 year-old woman from Melbourne found that she was getting repeated notifications of being tracked by an AirTag. She says that she tore her apartment apart looking for it, only to find it in a wheel hub of her car. She said "I felt so violated and I was in a state of shock. It just blew my mind that someone I trusted so much could do something like this." Needless to say, if you find yourself being tracked by one of these, don't destroy it, and contact authorities.

Rachel was being tracked with an AirTag. The culprit was very close to home

‘I felt so violated and I was in a state of shock.’

7news.com.au

In other news, Tile has announced an "Anti-Theft Mode" for their devices. They worked with law enforcement in its design.

Tile Hopes $1 Million Fine Will Deter Stalkers From Making Their Trackers Untrackable

The company launched an “Anti-Theft Mode,” which makes trackers undetectable by anyone save the original owner.

gizmodo.com

Tile claims that they will enforce a $1 million penalty against "any individual convicted in a court of law for using Tile devices to illegally track any individual without their knowledge or consent". Apparently, Tile is now law enforcement. It's going to be grand if they try to enforce this in court.

 

[Pumbaa]

In other words, Apple’s measures to make AirTags hard to use for stalking work.

Lots of people are unhappy with these measures because they make the AirTag virtually useless as an anti-theft device, to track and recover stolen items. This is of course a legitimate use case, but Apple is not selling AirTags as a solution to that particular problem.

Struggling Tile sees an opportunity and moves on it, trying to fill a void and probably also trying to make Tile trackers look better than AirTags overall. The catch is that they know very well why Apple did what they did with their AirTags, stalkers are a real problem. People will be using the Tile trackers to stalk people. The million dollar penalty is just there to make it look like they care and are trying to prevent it.

I mean, even if the terms were enforceable, targeting “any individual convicted in a court of law for using Tile devices to illegally track any individual without their knowledge or consent”? Come on! What does it matter when they’re already been caught and convicted? Tell us what you are doing to prevent stalkers from using your devices for stalking and to catch them if they do it anyway. Actions, not million-dollar fairytales.

Besides, if I put one of those trackers in my jacket and someone steals it, am I not tracking the thief without their knowledge or consent? I’m sure some backwater judge could fall for that!

 

[fischersd]

In other words, Apple’s measures to make AirTags hard to use for stalking work.

Lots of people are unhappy with these measures because they make the AirTag virtually useless as an anti-theft device, to track and recover stolen items. This is of course a legitimate use case, but Apple is not selling AirTags as a solution to that particular problem.

Ah, but the licensee's - they can have different types of devices on Apple's FindMy network that behave differently (the bicycles that have FindMy built into them - pretty guaranteed that people riding beside them aren't getting "a device is travelling with you" notifications).

Pretty sure this'll become part of the appeal of CarPlay being in your car - people licensing their head units to also be anti-theft devices on FindMy.

And then there's this: Knapsack with FindMy built in which would also fall into the anti-theft realm for a class of device.

AirTags are just too pocketable. Apple doesn't want that negative connotation with any of their devices.