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Apple AirTag Linked to Increasing Number of Car Thefts, Canadian Police Report

So a thief is gonna put an Apple AirTag on a fancy car, hoping that the owner leaves the fancy car outside their house and not in a garage where most fancy cars are kept, hoping that the owner doesn’t respond to the notification that they are being tracked, hoping that the AirTag will actually eventually give them the location of the owner’s house, and hoping that the owner of the fancy car has less security at home than the place where the AirTag was originally placed??? Seems a bit of a stretch…
 
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This thread is a bit pointless. Thieves are going to steal, regardless of a item tracking device. Just like a lock on your door, it only keeps out the honest people.
 
CARIB_APPLE said:
This connection to theft and AirTags is a bit premature / isolated cases. If the cars are "stolen from the driveway" people could easily walk down a street see a nice car in the drive way and steal it! no AirTag required.
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why walk down the street and look for nice cars? It's much more convenient to look at lots of nice cars in high-end malls, among other places, and pick and choose which ones to put a tracker on.
 
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MacRumors said:
While only five thefts have been directly linked to AirTags so far, more than 2,000 vehicles have been stolen across the region in the past year
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5 AirTag-enabled thefts out of 2000. So would that be “increasing” to a whole ¼ of a percent or from ¼ of a percent?
 
Konigi said:
Very soon, we'll see car manufacturers selling cars with embedded tracking features, that can hardly be disabled, so car owners can always know where their cars are.
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A few cars do have this now using integrated Cellular; which is not dependent simply upon the hope of an iPhone being nearby.

It would be useless to implement an Apple only solution if no one ever had an iPhone in close proximity to your stolen vehicle.

In fact, I would locate my chop shop far away from public access and ban iOS Devices if I were operating such an establishment.

(In some places both in the US and Worldwide, an up to date iOS device coming in close proximity of a stolen whatever is anything but a sure bet.)

My car from General Motors has OnStar; which relies on a module buried in the car, with high gain GPS/cellular antennas and LTE service providing vehicle locate, emergency services dispatch, stolen vehicle tracking/disable, lock/unlock and such.
 
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Kabeyun said:
5 AirTag-enabled thefts out of 2000. So would that be “increasing” to a whole ¼ of a percent or from ¼ of a percent?
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It doesn’t even seem that smart to use AirTags for purposes of facilitating theft. Aren’t they linked to your Apple ID or something? Seems this would be one sub peona away from having the thief’s identity revealed by Apple.
 
Konigi said:
I would have guessed AirTags could also be the solution to your car being stolen. Very soon, we'll see car manufacturers selling cars with embedded tracking features, that can hardly be disabled, so car owners can always know where their cars are.
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They do, it's called lojack......
 
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This story does not make any sense. How is the information about the residence of the car owner going to be of advantage in stealing the car? The reports say that the theft only takes minutes. If that's so, just steal it outright from the parking lot.

Seven pages of comments and NO ONE has come up with a good reason why the thefts are facilitated by AirTag. I call B.S.
 
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germinator said:
This story does not make any sense. How is the information about the residence of the car owner going to be of advantage in stealing the car? The reports say that the theft only takes minutes. If that's so, just steal it outright from the parking lot.

Seven pages of comments and NO ONE has come up with a good reason why the thefts are facilitated by AirTag. I call B.S.
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As was mentioned by another poster above, the AirTag basically serves a similar purpose to a GPS tracker you plant on a car, and it likely still works reasonably well in the US where the iphone has high adoption rates.

I suppose one could argue that an airtag is smaller, cheaper and more readily available than a GPS tracking device, but as it seems, the AirTag isn’t letting car thieves do anything new that they weren’t already accomplishing using existing technology.
 
anthogag said:
Can Apple CarPlay notify the driver about a suspect AirTag? Most newer vehicles are getting CarPlay. Car Play could alert an Android user.
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Great question. I can only speak of our 2021 Nissan Altima with car play. Never once has any kind of warning popped up on the infotainment center. Now all of our vehicles have AirTags hidden but it seems hit or miss even getting a notification about a strange AirTag following us. Different AppleIDs for all 3 vehicles. Maybe something Apple can implement?
 
Groking said:
Apple is will release encryption keys for anything to law enforcement via a search warrant. The fact that they have the ability to even give law enforcement encryption keys tells me they're not really "all about privacy".
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Any information that’s encrypted on device and/or in the cloud is encrypted. Even the account owner can’t get access to their data if they forget their password.
 
I guess all the more high-end car owners (or better still, the technology embedded in smart-cars/EVs) should have their own AirTags strategically placed in their cars. This may likely negate/counter the 'AirTag' from ill-intended on the basis:
  • ill-intended receive alert of unknown AirTag when they planning to place their own AirTag in targeted vehicle;
  • tracking back to the ill-intended or vehicle location, or last known location should it be stolen.
 
Abazigal said:
As was mentioned by another poster above, the AirTag basically serves a similar purpose to a GPS tracker you plant on a car, and it likely still works reasonably well in the US where the iphone has high adoption rates.
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Yes, and SO WHAT? How is this relevant to stealing a car?
 
vertsix said:
That's ironic. I use one in my car precisely to avoid a car theft and track down a potential criminal.

This may honestly backfire on Apple a lot if it becomes too hot, I just hope they don't cancel AirTag altogether.
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Hope they won't. AirTags are excellent. Once, while biking, I lost my flat keys. After realizing this some hundred meters afar, I could find the keys with absolutely no hassle. My AirTags have paid back themselves multiple times.
 
If you found an AirTag like this hidden in your car and you called the police I wonder what they would advise.
 
Once the trackers have your car back at des res, how do the tea leaves purloin your P+J?
 
400 said:
Once the trackers have your car back at des res, how do the tea leaves purloin your P+J?
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Kick your front door in and steal your keys or use keyless entry relay to open and start your car.
 
Reminds me of Google putting alexa in peoples home to steal their thoughts and market appropriately
 
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