AirTag Anti-Stalking Measures 'Just Aren't Sufficient' Says Washington Post Report

[macrumors_12345]

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.

Why would they need any tracker at all? They'd just enable location tracking on the spouse's phone.

That kind of controlling behavior and abuse is bad, no doubt about it. But it's controlling specifically because it's done with the victim's consent, or at least with the victim's knowledge. If the tracking is truly surreptitious, that defeats the point.

 

[Maconplasma]

It’s not a balance if Apple are falsely claiming it can’t be used for tracking someone.

Apple never claimed any of the sort. In fact last week the front page news article showed a statement from Apple that the Airtags were not meant for tracking thieves, humans or animals.

 

[pacalis]

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.

When you started talking about abusive relationships and stalking, the companies you should mention are facebook, bytedance, snapchat, twitter and google. Carry on...

 

[flofixer]

I totally knew this was gonna be a massive privacy problem and beneficial for stalkers:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-process.2278633/?post=29464228#post-29464228

You also were pretty sure they would never release them...

 

[shigatashway]

If the person being stalked isn't an apple product owner, there is no way for them to know they're being stalked. I'd hedge that apple's banking on this fact being an incentive for more sales.

 

[deevey]

Not really a fair comparison. Apple's tracking is implemented through a worldwide network of millions of Apple devices. Tile's is not, so isn't nearly as powerful.

So their anti-tracking safeguard is corporate failure ?

 

[ani4ani]

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.

Amazon is not the Washington Posts parent company

Maybe because Apple in their Keynote claimed all of those "industry first" anti-tracking features, they have opened themselves up for a little bit critisism when they don't turn out to be quite as good as folks hoped / expected?

 

[lorkkrue]

As a professional assassin, I do like the AirTags very much…

Most of my victims are Android users anyway.

This says . . . don't be an android user. lol

 

[crazy dave]

Find My feature has been around for at least 10 years.

The Find my Phone is old, the Find My network is not. Different technologies. The latter was introduced two years ago. There is a separate toggle to turn each of them off.

 

[cmaier]

If the person being stalked isn't an apple product owner, there is no way for them to know they're being stalked. I'd hedge that apple's banking on this fact being an incentive for more sales.

The fact that the thing starts beeping would seem to be a way for them to know they’re being stalked, no?

So, when Tile sells devices that don’t do that, are they also banking on selling to stalkers?

How big, do you think, is the stalker market? What percentage of Apple’s quarterly revenue would fall into sales of airtags to stalkers who are stalking people with android devices?

I’d really like to understand the full depth of this conspiracy.

 

[Maconplasma]

Why would they need any tracker at all? They'd just enable location tracking on the spouse's phone.

I hope you realize that the spouse in question would perhaps have their phone password protected and they would question why their significant other would need to get into their phone.

That kind of controlling behavior and abuse is bad, no doubt about it.

Any type of controlling behavior towards a person is bad.

But it's controlling specifically because it's done with the victim's consent, or at least with the victim's knowledge.

LMAO the “victim” giving consent to be controlled. How are thinking up such stuff? 😂

 

[crazy dave]

You are arguing with yourself, not with me. Because your counterargument was not addressing my argument. I never said what you claim I said.

You wrote:

Turning off Find My let’s you disable others tracking you by your iPhone. It doesn’t disable your iPhone reporting someone else’s Airtag location.

I wrote:

No when you turn off Find My you are off the Find My network. You won't participate. Nobody can track you by your iPhone even if you are on the network. That's not how it works. They can use you to track other items and people that they are allowed to track. If just participating in the Find My network allowed anyone to track anyone participating that right there would be a massive privacy violation. You wouldn't need airtags to worry about stalking.

I'm sorry but what? In other words, what you wrote was wrong in both sentences. Find My Network doesn't let other people track you by your iPhone as you wrote (Turning off Find My let’s you disable others tracking you by your iPhone.) and turning it off does disable your iPhone reporting someone else's AirTag location (It doesn’t disable your iPhone reporting someone else’s Airtag location.) Turning off the Find My Network does not affect Find My iPhone (a separate toggle) which uses cell and GPS for you to find your own phone. Is that what you meant to write? Because it isn't what you wrote.

EDIT: Wait are you referring to family and friends who have given you permission to track them - i.e. turned share my location on? Because again, that's a different thing.

 

[crazy dave]

If only we knew the on/off switches actually did turn it off. That’s the transparency we as users are missing. How do we know turning off the feature doesn’t just turn off the notifications and not the use of our phones to call Apple? If it’s anything like turning off background refresh, than it doesn’t work.

The Find My Network toggle turns it off. Privacy > Location Services > Share My Location > Find My iPhone (too many layers, poor design)

Now has 3 toggles:

Find My iPhone

Find My Network

Share Last Location

The middle one is the one you want to turn off if you don't participate in the Find My Network. The only one that contacts Apple is the last one.

 

[inteljoe]

Can I pay extra for an AirTag that doesn't have these anti-stalking features?

I was thinking of picking up a few for my kids, the little ones that don't have a phone. But now, not so much.

 

[sparkinstx]

I guess what we need is a device or app that can scan for all nearby BLE/UWB transmitters. That way if you’re worried about stalking or tracking devices you can find them easily!

You just reminded me that I have the "BLE Scanner" app from the App Store. I hadn't used it in a long time. It's picking up all kinds of stuff, like two Samsung 7-Series TVs - I don't own any Samsung TVs, so they must be next door.

 

[Kilibee]

If the person being stalked isn't an apple product owner, there is no way for them to know they're being stalked.

Well, to be sure you should rather track all Bluetooth devices around you, and eventually hunt them down. There are a lot of Bluetooth scanning apps available.

 

[sparkinstx]

Now write an article on GPS trackers.

 

[crazy dave]

No, the Find My feature was never designed to track a moving Airtag. It was designed to locate a stationary airtag, as in keys that fell out of your pocket in a park, or a purse / wallet left in a place that you visited. If an object you are tracking is stationary, you WILL get its location because chances of someone with an iPhone passing by a frequently visited area within a reasonable amount of time are quite high. All you will need is one iPhone user being in proximity to your lost item to get its location.

The equation changes quite a bit when the object is moving. To track a moving object you will need a constant flow of GPS data to plot out the movement. If the person with your Airtag on him/her doesn’t own an iPhone, you will be getting occasional hits on the GPS location of a moving Airtag when an iPhone user passes in close proximity. This is not enough information to track the Airtag or stalk someone.

That’s why using the Airtag for tracking a dog is not the most effective way to find a missing dog because the dog is constantly on the move, and the dog doesn’t have an iPhone attached to it. So, you will get occasional hits on the dog’s location, and you will most likely be able to pinpoint a neighborhood where it’s on the loose, but by the time you get to the last reported location of the dog, the dog most likely won’t be there.

You can find where someone lives by following them - up to the actual condo/apartment building or the house. I’m not even addressing the fact that someone’s address can be found on the Internet for a $20 fee. There is no need to plant an Airtag on someone to be able to find out where they live. If “stalking” means being able to track someone’s movements, an Airtag planted on an Android user will not be a very good tracking device for the aforementioned reasons.

I will agree that it will be less precise if you yourself are not actively sending out information to the tracker via your iPhone ... I mean obviously ... but that doesn't mean it isn't otherwise possible or plausible. It very much is. Remember they want your destinations in this scenario.

What I will also agree with is that there are other trackers purpose built for doing this and improving notifications for Android users won't fix that. So no this isn't a paradigm shift where suddenly something that wasn't possible before is now possible. It's just building in extra precautions into Apple's system to ensure it doesn't add to the problem.

 

[Wolframite]

What are the betting odds that Apple will neuter AirTag's functionality somewhat in subsequent updates to appease these types of concerns?

 

[cmaier]

What are the betting odds that Apple will neuter AirTag's functionality somewhat in subsequent updates to appease these types of concerns?

Slim. They may play around with the time intervals before beeping starts, and that kind of thing. Maybe they release a “am i being stalked“ app for android so that android users can detect nearby airtags.

 

[tivoboy]

I find a lot of these conversations frustrating.

- A readily available GPS tracker is more efficient and better than a Airtag for tracking and they can track moving objects.
- If you don't 'have control over your phone' then an abuser will just use the phone to track you and again, that's a better solution.


BTW. A friend of mine caught his wife cheating by using "find my.' He dropped his work phone in the pouch behind her seat and used 'Find My' on his personal phone to track her straight to a hotel.

GPS may be more accurate and possibly can send info to another service, but using the GPS it probably wouldn't last very long at all. Few days possibly at best?

 

[BobVB]

It’s not a balance if Apple are falsely claiming it can’t be used for tracking someone.

Which they didn't do. They have only said they've made it more difficult. Since a sub $100 credit card size Android phone connected to an external battery can GPS track you for much longer and more accurately this hysteria is just that. If someone wants to stalk you they will, but a serious stalker would use better equipment that would be less likely to incriminate them.

 

[BobVB]

GPS may be more accurate and possibly can send info to another service, but using the GPS it probably wouldn't last very long at all. Few days possibly at best?

But that's the issue, the only 'advantage' for the AirTag is the long battery life which is why after 3 days it starts beating that not only might reveal it but probably greatly decreases the battery life. Shoot way back in the day I put my Garmin GPS to check out what my car was going when supposedly parked in the long term parking and it tracked for a week.

This is all media hysteria. Want to stalk do it better with a device designed for the task.

 

[usagora]

Apple never claimed any of the sort. In fact last week the front page news article showed a statement from Apple that the Airtags were not meant for tracking thieves, humans or animals.

It's true Apple never claimed it "can't" be used for tracking someone (their website says "AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking" not to prevent it), but them saying it's "not meant" for tracking isn't really a rebuttal to someone claiming Apple said it "can't" track anyone (because "not meant to do something" isn't necessarily equivalent to "can't do something" . . . cars aren't meant to kill people, but they can, for example).

 

[hmmfe]

Slim. They may play around with the time intervals before beeping starts, and that kind of thing. Maybe they release a “am i being stalked“ app for android so that android users can detect nearby airtags.

I am thinking the latter is the best option, too. A simple app that does nothing but alerts the user that an airtag has been "following" them for x amount of time. No other function would be necessary. Not sure how many people would think to download the app since I am assuming not many people are worried that they are being stalked but at least its an option.

I don't get the hysteria though. Small tracking devices have been around for years. Perhaps the precision is not as good as airtags under ideal situations, but I don't think that is a hinderance to a dedicated stalker.