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AirTag Anti-Stalking Measures 'Just Aren't Sufficient' Says Washington Post Report
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Most people in an abusive relationship live with the abuser. The concern isn't about the tiny number of celebrity stalkers who might plant a Tag on an actress somehow. It's about controlling husbands (or wives, fine) planting one on their spouse to secretly monitor their activities and potentially follow them around. Imagine that said spouse has been visiting a counselor or divorce lawyer or the police, and the abuser can now monitor that on a daily basis? That's a problem, whether its made by Apple or Samsung or Tile.
What an unbelievably arrogant and shortsighted comment.
You're just asking another version of "Why didn't she just leave him?" when a woman is killed by an abusive spouse. It's never that easy, nevermind if there are kids involved.
So where the flying f@$& were these articles on Tile and other tracking devices when they came out WaPo??? This part right here makes the whole article pointless. Just going after “fear Apple” clicks. Unbelievable.
Apple does not promote them as helping to locate stolen items (although it can be used that way). They are explicitly marketed as a way of locating misplaced or lost items.
I understand how the Find My feature has been working. My point was more about Apple addressing how to keep people from stalking others using AirTags and how that could defeat the purpose of using a tracker for something like car keys, if they allowed someone to disable a device in some way.
The one kid of ours who is prone to losing things is also the only one who refuses to share his Find My location with us. It’s odd too, because we don’t ”track” any of them - their devices show up when we look at our own Find My map - it is fun to be able to see them scattered across the country on the map, but that’s about the extent of our ”tracking” them.
Knowing our son, he’d be most likely to pull the battery out of the AirTag, since he’s ALWAYS doing that to tv remotes, game controllers, etc., losing the battery cover.
LOL... I don't know where you live, but if you live somewhere that this is an actual possibility, consider yourself lucky. No police anywhere around here will track or recover anything based on something like this. They want absolutely nothing to do with such a time-consuming, he-said-she-said can of worms as taking your word on any of this.
This just illustrates that anyone who wants to slightly modify a tracker by adding some type of muffling material could probably easily do so.
I think the article is very informative about the benefits and limitations of the device. It’s funny that because the author doesn’t happily accept the Air Tag, flaws and all, suddenly the Washington Post can’t be trusted and is a rag of a newspaper. Some of you need psychoanalysis.
So are you saying you can't find things that have a Tile on them? Isn't that what Tile is for?
This is a filppant perspective and it sounds like you might not be sympathetic to the harsh realities of domestic abuse and engineered dependence.
A small company like Tile can do the same but nobody cares. It takes a big company like Apple that has a big target on its back to launch a similar product and now all people freak out. It seems like the world we live today has gone nuts. People have way too much time to worry about everything. Go get a job and you won't need to worry about things like this because you won't have time.
Apple doesn’t have to promote their use in finding / recovering stolen items. Some people will simply think that way, either because they’ve had certain things stolen in the past or because they are simply afraid a theft could happen.
I personally don’t lose things like my car keys or wallet, or briefcase for that matter. But I have had bicycles stolen, so that was one of the things I thought about using the AirTag for (hiding on the bikes). Is the market really that big for people who lose or misplace things on such a regular basis that they need AirTags?
It really is a matter of scale. Though theoretically this would work with Tile, practically this is a non scenario.
So, you can't use it in a remote scenario. And yes, this is what it (also) was for.
The only thing that should be a really turnoff for a stalker is that the serial number of any tag that is found is always available via NFC, and that this S/N is connected to one Apple-ID.
So, contrary to i.e. an GPS device, if an Airtag is found in such a scenario, the culprit is relatively easy to find out and can hardly deny responsibility.
I guess Apple thinks that market exists. They have tended to be correct more often than not on that kind of thing. But they do have occasional misses too.
Apple could have optimized for tracking stolen items - it would need to be smaller to be more easily concealed, meaning no replaceable battery, probably much smaller battery life, probably no or a quieter speaker, and so on. This would make the produce more problematic on the very complaints we are already seeing - that they could facilitate stalking, or that they are unsafe products for children. And it would likely add additional complaints, such as the usual "planned obsolescence" argument for shipping a product without a replaceable battery. Apple simply chose to target a different market.
If people use AirTags for other purposes, they will probably get a sub-optimal experience. Sometimes Apple spots these trends and adjusts their product planning accordingly (such as Apple Watch focusing on wellness and fitness instead of fashion and as an iPhone adjunct). Or maybe they will have to make the marketing clearer on this point. But I suspect that Apple isn't going to be unhappy with the market results of this first version of AirTags. And I also suspect the number of incidents of AirTags being eaten or used to facilitate stalking is going to be vanishingly small.
I’m no expert, but in my 20 seconds of Googling, I found a tracker that boasts worldwide coverage (small monthly fee required) and has a 5 star rating on Amazon.
This of course has no safety or preventative measures, and ironically is being sold by WaPo’s parent company. But of course no crocodile tears for that product… why? Because accusing a no-name product of these things wouldn’t grab clicks and headlines, so they don’t really care.
"so if the person being stalked lives with their stalker"
Um... the problem is not the AirTag here and blaming it on the AirTag is stupid.
Um... the problem is not the AirTag here and blaming it on the AirTag is stupid.
Not the Post.
Newspaper magnates who use their position to advance narratives is not a new concept. See “Citizen Kane” for a fictional portrayal of the influence Hearst had on news…
Alternate headling for this story:
Washington Post Report Says it expects to much from AirTag's industry only Anti-Stalking Measures
In your fictional scenario the abused already has an iPhone with "find my" forced on by the abuser. The Airtag isn't even necessary nor would it work nearly as well as the phone for the intended purpose.
Having dealt with a sister-in-law who took forever to leave her abuser despite means, opportunity, and support, I know the airtag won’t make much difference. For everyone who uses it to keep tabs on their “victim” there is also the opportunity for the “victim” to do the same to the abuser. In fact, it may have been HELPFUL to us to have her understand all the cheating he was doing and verifying where he was when he was gone.
That said, I don’t think Apple should be directly involved in marketing their own tags.
It is not an anti-thief device... If you need an anti-theft device buy an anti-theft device ...