AirTags = Not an antitheft device

[Lumpydog]

Hey everyone - not for nothing... but you all realize that, if you try to use AirTags to thwart thieves... and the thief has an iPhone, the AirTag is going to "narc on itself". Right? The thief's iPhone is going to report that there is an unattached AirTag following or "in proximity" or whatever the IOS warning is.

Apple built that capability in to stop people from using AirTags to stalk each other. If a thief hops on your AirTagged bike, they're going to get a warning on their iPhone that it has an AirTag. I guess you could hope the thief has an Android... or no iPhone. Or - once notified, they aren't smart enough to then figure out that they should just put the bike (or other stolen thing) somewhere where it can't be tracked...

These things are really meant to find something you've misplaced or lost. It's not a LoJac (for you older people) or other anti-theft device. Apple has set these up to make it super easy for thieves to identify its presence and defeat it.

 

[michaelb5000]

I’m not so sure. Human behavior is complicated. Some thieves may abandon what they took when they get notified. They are mostly looking for drugs and money and not my dirty clothes so i may just get my bag back.

i guessing most stolen goods don’t travel that far or for that long. So they may have arrived before any notice from the airtag is triggered. Not sure what i would do with this info but it is something.

professional thieves are going to be motivated not to be tracked. So yes they will know how to disable them. But they may prefer to move and abandon the goods if they are worried they were tracked.

 

[rijc99]

Someone who makes their drug money stealing stuff might not have qualms about hurting you either. Be careful if you’re intending to use these as a method to track down thieves.

 

[lars666]

If I understood it correctly, you have three days until the warning on an unregistered iPhone. That sounds like a perfect compromise to me and should be plenty of time to find the thief. In a wallet etc. you won't be able to hide the AirTag good enough though.

 

[rijc99]

If I understood it correctly, you have three days until the warning on an unregistered iPhone. That sounds like a perfect compromise to me and should be plenty of time to find the thief. In a wallet etc. you won't be able to hide the AirTag good enough though.

A thief is going to strip the wallet of valuables within a few minutes.

 

[lars666]

A thief is going to strip the wallet of valuables within a few minutes.

Of course he will, I didn't say anything different. An AirTag, hidden under a saddle of your bike etc., will give you the chance that the thief doesn't discover / search for it so that you can track your bike down (together with the police, if necessary) – nothing more, nothing less. An AirTag in your wallet will almost definitely be found immediately by the thief and thrown away (resp. the whole wallet after he took the money and cards).

 

[minvoyager]

How does TILE, the competitive product, deal with this situation? I'd imagine it is major issue, and since TILE has been on the market for longer, they'd have had enough time to decide how to address that issue.

 

[Lihp8270]

If I understood it correctly, you have three days until the warning on an unregistered iPhone. That sounds like a perfect compromise to me and should be plenty of time to find the thief. In a wallet etc. you won't be able to hide the AirTag good enough though.

No. The 3 days is how long it needs to be stationary for out of the owners presence before moving to trigger the beeps.

the measures for anti-stalking are different.

 

[matrix07]

How does TILE, the competitive product, deal with this situation?

I don’t think Tile cares about privacy.

 

[maflynn]

I never considered these antitheft. They're tracking for lost items, not preventing someone from steeling. There's no way a tiny white puck will stop someone from steeling a pocketbook, or a laptop bag with these visibly on them Its quite likely he/she will have a knife and it will simply cut the air tag off

 

[KeithJenner]

If I understood it correctly, you have three days until the warning on an unregistered iPhone. That sounds like a perfect compromise to me and should be plenty of time to find the thief. In a wallet etc. you won't be able to hide the AirTag good enough though.

You don’t understand it correctly. The 3 day thing is completely different. If someone steals you item containing an airtag they will receive a warning much earlier than that. The actual time is unknown, but the little evidence we have suggests less than an hour.

They are still likely to have stripped and discarded a bag before that anyway.

 

[KeithJenner]

Hey everyone - not for nothing... but you all realize that, if you try to use AirTags to thwart thieves... and the thief has an iPhone, the AirTag is going to "narc on itself". Right? The thief's iPhone is going to report that there is an unattached AirTag following or "in proximity" or whatever the IOS warning is.

Apple built that capability in to stop people from using AirTags to stalk each other. If a thief hops on your AirTagged bike, they're going to get a warning on their iPhone that it has an AirTag. I guess you could hope the thief has an Android... or no iPhone. Or - once notified, they aren't smart enough to then figure out that they should just put the bike (or other stolen thing) somewhere where it can't be tracked...

These things are really meant to find something you've misplaced or lost. It's not a LoJac (for you older people) or other anti-theft device. Apple has set these up to make it super easy for thieves to identify its presence and defeat it.

Correct. This has been discussed on many threads on here over the past few days (and on quite a few over the past few months).

 

[snorkelman]

Personally I think they should leverage the Find My network to have every iphone within proximity of it whisper 'theres a stolen AirTag' as it passes by - in crowded areas ideally hundreds of them (all out of sync with each other for maximum effect)

but yes its only real use is to locate an innocently missing item The best you can hope in those other not so innocent circumstances is that it's attached to /hidden on the object in such a way that they decide it's easier/faster to ditch it than try to find/remove it

 

[Apple_Robert]

Apple didn't market said items as anti-theft. It would be foolish to use them in such a manner.

 

[DotCom2]

Apple didn't market said items as anti-theft. It would be foolish to use them in such a manner.

Maybe they didn't "market" it as such because they don't want to be held liable. The time between when a thief takes your item and when he is alerted that he is being tracked, is a potential window of opportunity to retrieve your stolen item. We will just have to wait and see.

Edited for typos.

 

[Kaffebreak]

Maybe the didn't "market" it as such because they don't want to be held liable. The time between when a thief takes you item and when he is alerted that he is being tracked, is a potential window of opportunity to retrieve your stolen item. We will just have to wait and see.

Exactly. I've heard/read reports of when AirTags are "lost" for 3 days or when they follow someone else to there home it will notify. Either way if both or any of these claims are correct it will absolutely work even for theft.

 

[KeithJenner]

Exactly. I've heard/read reports of when AirTags are "lost" for 3 days or when they follow someone else to there home it will notify. Either way if both or any of these claims are correct it will absolutely work even for theft.

The part about people being notified when a tag is following them (without the owner present) isn't a claim. It is specifically stated on the apple website, and was mentioned at the release.

I'm not sure why you take that as evidence that this means the tag will work for anti theft. This is what makes it unlikely to work.

 

[DotCom2]

Exactly. I've heard/read reports of when AirTags are "lost" for 3 days or when they follow someone else to there home it will notify. Either way if both or any of these claims are correct it will absolutely work even for theft.

Yep, the possibility exists.

 

[DotCom2]

The part about people being notified when a tag is following them (without the owner present) isn't a claim. It is specifically stated on the apple website, and was mentioned at the release.

I'm not sure why you take that as evidence that this means the tag will work for anti theft. This is what makes it unlikely to work.

It's because of the time between when he steals the item to the time he is alerted. We don't know yet how long of a time that is. It could be a window opportunity to retrieve your stolen item.

 

[KeithJenner]

It's because of the time between when he steals the item to the time he is alerted. We don't know yet how long of a time that is. It could be a window opportunity to retrieve your stolen item.

I understand that, but the post I quoted seems to suggest that the existence of the notification that a thief receives is a reason why it can be used for anti theft.

The length of time it takes could make it less of a hinderance, but that doesn’t seem to be what the post says.

 

[Ifti]

Airtags are not antitheft devices. Their intended use is to track items you have lost or misplaced.

 

[teohyc]

AirTags cannot prevent theft.

People just want see if they can track their stolen items.

 

[Ninja Dom]

Let’s say that you’ve placed an AirTag on a bike. Which is a legit object to place an AirTag on, as “bike” is selectable from the AirTag setup menu.

Now, your bike gets stolen by a thief with an iPhone.

What alerts will the thief see if you DON’T flag the bike as lost?

What alerts will the thief see if you DO flag the bike as lost?

 

[KeithJenner]

Let’s say that you’ve placed an AirTag on a bike. Which is a legit object to place an AirTag on, as “bike” is selectable from the AirTag setup menu.

Now, your bike gets stolen by a thief with an iPhone.

What alerts will the thief see if you DON’T flag the bike as lost?

What alerts will the thief see if you DO flag the bike as lost?

If you don't flag the bike as lost then at some point the thief is likely to get a notification that he is being followed by a tag which is away from its owner.

We don't yet know how long this will take (my guess is somewhere around 30m to an hour), and also what the implications are of the thief moving away from the bike and returning. If he gets on the bike and rides off with it for a while then he is more likely to get an alert than if he loads it onto a vehicle or quickly moves it to another location. At some point someone will get this warning.

Marking it as lost will almost certainly have no effect on that part (otherwise, all a stalker needs to do is mark their tag as lost). I'm not sure exactly what the implications are of flagging a tag as lost (other than that you can set up a message for anyone that finds it and give contact details). Others will probably have more details on this.

 

[cxy2176]

Looks like they have accounted for a way to balance anti-stalking and anti-theft. According to this video, and other comments I have read, an iPhone won't activate the anti-stalking notification until the person has gotten home or to a location of significance. No it is not a perfect system, but does seem to strike a balance between the two.