Apple to Expand AirTag-Like Unwanted Tracking Alerts to Other Item Trackers in Future iOS Version

[ifxf]

It’s a great step in the right direction, though I’m a bit miffed that wrongdoers make it so difficult for those of us who want to use the product responsibly. I think we’re beginning to reach a happy medium. The only functionality I would hope appears sometime soon is family sharing. My fiancé and I share a car and I put an AirTag in it because the car itself is dumb. I want to be able to see if it’s stolen or lost in a parking lot. This makes it harder as she gets annoying alerts and is now desensitized to it. I changed the AirTag to register under her because it’s more important she not ignore tracking messages than for me to utilize it as I originally wanted. Sharing the AirTag between both accounts as were on a family plan would be better, but I get why those in abusive relationships might not want it. Still, I think people smarter than me at Apple can figure out a way to make this work.

For those of you afraid this new thing will alert thieves too quickly, it really doesn’t imo. If my wallet or backpack got stolen, I’d immediately be notified that the AirTag is no longer with me at which point I can start tracking it. The thieves won’t get the tracking message until they have it for a prolonged period of time. It’s at this point they can attempt to disable it but you should already technically know where it is by that point.

I usually hide my AirTags pretty well and I would think if the thieves had some brain cells they’d just drop it rather than risk being caught. Rummaging around to find a hidden AirTag might take too long and the risk of them being caught becomes higher.

I do hope they can work out a lot of these issues as I love the product and it’s useful for what I need it for. There are some barriers I hope get eliminated but I’m hopeful

My car reports its location via its app. Eventually all cars will support this functionality.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Just telling you how Airtags are designed to work! FWIW - since I've been using Airtags (two years now) and since flying restrictions have been eased, I've made a number of long haul flights and have not experienced an issue. I have seen maybe two alerts about an Airtag moving with me, and these were actually my son's and his girlfriends. So - they do certainly appear, but it wasn't like I was bombarded with messages. That's just my anecdotal evidence, though. YMMV.

Cruise ships - unless the same person was walking around within metres of you for a duration, you very likely won't get notifications. Maybe one or two, but I doubt you'll be bombarded with the things.

Having said that, I'm due to do a cruise later on this year hahaha - so I guess I'll find out about that, then!

Yes, I understand. But this story is about stepping up the alerts... not leaving it "as is." That's the basis for the concern. In stepping up the alerts that an AirTag is around so that "we" know we are not being secretly stalked, is there potential for us to feel harassed at all of the new notifications warning us about AirTags around us just in case? That's what I think I read in this story.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

AirTags don't give the "warning" alert to others if their owner's phone is nearby.

I have 4 AirTags and my phone is rarely near any of them. Is that unusual (use of AirTags)? I presume for many of us, phone proximity to air tags is not common use. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.

For me, it's other people's phones that give me the primary benefit of AirTags. And this story makes me wonder if many notifications will be incoming with these "improvements" vs. the "as is."

 

[lovehateapple]

The feature I want most is the ability to share airtags with multiple people for tracking common property, like pets for example.

 

[wigby]

I get the nefarious use issue very well but I don't exactly love companies who came up with the easy tracking working against easy tracking. What's the legit purpose of these things? For me, I want to use them for some added theft protection, so I put one in my car and one in an expensive bike. If either are stolen, I'd like these to help potentially locate and recover them vs. the insurance claim scenario, which likely ends up leading to only more out of pocket to replace since insurance generally pays less than replacement. See the NYC Police story posted yesterday encouraging this very use.

However, if "safeguards" are going to alert the thieves that these are tracking them so they can find and toss the tracker, I'm not exactly feeling I can get ANYTHING out of this product. It seems it is marching towards becoming only a lost stuff device and not a stolen things tracker. It's great that I can find misplaced car keys or wallet but the found keys do no good if the car itself is missing.

It seems as these are evolving to avoid the scant nefarious use case, many good uses are being undermined too. Or more simply, the bad guys are winning: due to THEIR actions, steps are being taken to NOT track them doing another bad thing.

I don't know a complete answer here. Clearly, the stalker issue is a real problem too. But it seems unfortunate that one nefarious use is going to work against many positive uses.

Nothing is really changing except that Google is introducing their own personal trackers. So before regulators drag both Apple and Google into courts and fine them, the companies are trying to get ahead of the problem. Trackers were never designed or marketed to be used to retrieve stolen items. It just happened to work out that way sometimes. Instead of a proprietary network of Apple devices, both companies will combine their networks and increase the possibility of detection by a lot. That is only a positive for people trying to locate lost or stolen items. If Apple and Google maintain the same 3-8 hour notification window for possible unknown trackers nearby, nothing has really changed except better detection of trackers for all smartphone users.

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

I get all the notifications - I truly do - I'm for them and appreciate these companies working together to standardize consumer devices!

The only thing I wish we could do is, "accept a device not owned by me" - for example, I put an AirTag on my keys. If someone uses my car without me, they receive notifications that they are being tracked. It annoyed my girlfriend so much that I removed the AirTag (3rd party device) - it was easier than having her threaten my life every time she received a notification. I finally just paired it with her phone, so she doesn't get the notifications, but now I do - I don't mind so much, but it's still just silly.

And yes, I still see that it 'could' be used for nefarious purposes even when 'accepting' it as an 'approved' tracking device. But we really should have some sort of middle ground.

Of course, if I'm missing something that is already available - I'd be thrilled to hear it

 

[MrTemple]

I don't know a complete answer here. Clearly, the stalker issue is a real problem too. But it seems unfortunate that one nefarious use is going to work against many positive uses.

Maybe a solution is you can set an air-tag to 'always track mode' (for a most valuable item), but by doing so, it requires some sort of registration with your personal information and law enforcement can automatically be notified.

Basically it uses Apple as a third party intermediary (all automated) who can keep the private info out of the hands of the tracker or trackee, but still have it available to initiate a police case.

Here's a very rough idea of features. It seems to be a path where maybe we have our cake and can eat it privately too...

1. To enable 'always track' mode on an individual AirTag for a valuable item, you agree to let apple send your personal info to law enforcement in certain cases.

2. If the airtag is found with anybody but the authorized trackee (and the owner is not travelling with like on a bus), that unauthorized trackee is notified that they are being tracked.

3. The 'unauthorized tracking' prompt asks the trackee three options:

- 3.a) Allow the owner of the tracker to view their location (permanently or temporarily)
- 3.b) Initiate 'law-enforcement dispute mode' (with continued tracking not available to the owner of the tracker).

4. Law enforcement dispute mode keeps tracking, but disables the airtag's location for the owner. Only apple can access/forward location info to law enforcement.

5. In LE Dispute mode, the unauthorized trackee can't see who's tracking, can't turn tracking off, but can initiate police case to report unautorized tracking.

6. In LE Dispute mode, the owner can no longer see tracking, but they can forward the Apple case to law enforcement who can access the tracking data and find the stolen item.

7. Law enforcement is never notified unless it is an owner trying to recover a stolen item, or an unauthorized trackee trying to find who is tracking them.

Again this is a rough idea, but maybe it's a good framework to start from. 🤷‍♂️

 

[redbeard331]

Ok so this makes me not want to get any tracker at all, all this article does is make me think of George Carlin, “for the children”, “save the children” now it’s “to prevent stalking”.

You’d think if anyone understands why this thief alert system is stupid it would be Apple. Odds are everyone that works at Apple has had their car broken into in San Francisco at least a dozen times or more. They could at least allow you to put the tags into a stolen mode so it doesn’t alert the thieves if it’s in a car or bag that is stolen.

 

[croger1998]

I get the nefarious use issue very well but I don't exactly love companies who came up with the easy tracking working against easy tracking. What's the legit purpose of these things? For me, I want to use them for some added theft protection, so I put one in my car and one in an expensive bike. If either are stolen, I'd like these to help potentially locate and recover them vs. the insurance claim scenario, which likely ends up leading to only more out of pocket to replace since insurance generally pays less than replacement. See the NYC Police story posted yesterday encouraging this very use.

However, if "safeguards" are going to alert the thieves that these are tracking them so they can find and toss the tracker, I'm not exactly feeling I can get ANYTHING out of this product. It seems it is marching towards becoming only a lost stuff device and not a stolen things tracker. It's great that I can find misplaced car keys or wallet but the found keys do no good if the car itself is missing.

It seems as these are evolving to avoid the scant nefarious use case, many good uses are being undermined too. Or more simply, the bad guys are winning: due to THEIR actions, steps are being taken to NOT track them doing another bad thing.

I don't know a complete answer here. Clearly, the stalker issue is a real problem too. But it seems unfortunate that one nefarious use is going to work against many positive uses.

100% this!

 

[TheOldChevy]

How will it work with this thief catching police initiative, then? Surely, if a thief uses an iPhone or another supported device, it would alert them there is an AirTag in their stolen car? 🤔

New York Police Department Encourages Car Owners to Use AirTags to Deter Theft, 500 Free AirTags Available

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is encouraging New York car owners to install Apple AirTags in cars in order to cut down on car theft in the...

www.macrumors.com

Which is ok: they will target another car.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

My car reports its location via its app. Eventually all cars will support this functionality.

That's great. It's the length of time until "eventually" that undermines the ease of that being THE solution. Between now and that eventually, this kind of gadget offers car owners one potentially useful tool... unless it's also going to proactively tell thieves that it is there, so they can find it and toss it.

• "This home is locked... but the key is under the mat"
• "This home is protected by an alarm... but the code to disarm the alarm is..."
• "This home is protected by Spike... but he's a softy if you give him a bone"
• "This home's valuables are in a secret safe... but it's in the master bedroom behind the painting of a meadow... and the combination requires 4 turns... but here's that combination..."
• "This home is protected by a man with a big gun... but he's away from home between now and next THU"
• Etc.

 

[Sir_Macs_A_Lot]

When are they going to let my wife and I see the same air tags on each of our phones?? It's crazy there isn't family sharing on Air Tags yet...

While that will be a great feature many of us look forward to, Apple seems more focused right now on limiting their liability if users of this product get stalked and assaulted/murdered. I can see the lawsuits now.

 

[littlebobbytables]

I have 4 AirTags and my phone is rarely near any of them. Is that unusual (use of AirTags)? I presume for many of us, phone proximity to air tags is not common use. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.

For me, it's other people's phones that give me the primary benefit of AirTags. And this story makes me wonder if many notifications will be incoming with these "improvements" vs. the "as is."

The alerts we're talking about are the anti-stalking alerts. If your AirTag travels with someone else for a long time, and your phone isn't nearby, they will get an alert about an unrecognized AirTag following them.

 

[jlc1978]

When are they going to let my wife and I see the same air tags on each of our phones?? It's crazy there isn't family sharing on Air Tags yet...

I suspect it’s to prevent someone adding an AirTag without the owner’s knowledge; though it would be easy to make it a sharing feature only the original owner can enable and disable. I’d like it so we both could track luggage instead of splitting between us.

As for cars, I suspect LoJack was a better option; it would seem Apple or some other company could come up with a similar system and functionality with Bluetooth.

 

[pmasters]

AirTags don't give the "warning" alert to others if their owner's phone is nearby.

So stalkers have to make sure they start following their victims within that time window so the person being stalked isn't notified of the Airtag in their backseat. Score another one for the criminals.

 

[pmasters]

Maybe a solution is you can set an air-tag to 'always track mode' (for a most valuable item), but by doing so, it requires some sort of registration with your personal information and law enforcement can automatically be notified.

Basically it uses Apple as a third party intermediary (all automated) who can keep the private info out of the hands of the tracker or trackee, but still have it available to initiate a police case.

Here's a very rough idea of features. It seems to be a path where maybe we have our cake and can eat it privately too...

1. To enable 'always track' mode on an individual AirTag for a valuable item, you agree to let apple send your personal info to law enforcement in certain cases.

2. If the airtag is found with anybody but the authorized trackee (and the owner is not travelling with like on a bus), that unauthorized trackee is notified that they are being tracked.

3. The 'unauthorized tracking' prompt asks the trackee three options:

- 3.a) Allow the owner of the tracker to view their location (permanently or temporarily)
- 3.b) Initiate 'law-enforcement dispute mode' (with continued tracking not available to the owner of the tracker).

4. Law enforcement dispute mode keeps tracking, but disables the airtag's location for the owner. Only apple can access/forward location info to law enforcement.

5. In LE Dispute mode, the unauthorized trackee can't see who's tracking, can't turn tracking off, but can initiate police case to report unautorized tracking.

6. In LE Dispute mode, the owner can no longer see tracking, but they can forward the Apple case to law enforcement who can access the tracking data and find the stolen item.

7. Law enforcement is never notified unless it is an owner trying to recover a stolen item, or an unauthorized trackee trying to find who is tracking them.

Again this is a rough idea, but maybe it's a good framework to start from. 🤷‍♂️

So the criminal who stole the item... any idea what they would choose? Oh that's right, they would locate the tracker and toss it. So law enforcement will find the tracker sans stolen item.

 

[BrentD]

Good point. I look back to the earlier post of the guy getting prompted out walking the dog because the AirTag is linked to his wife's ID.

Yes, it seems that IF the ID owner is moving with you, that would filter these prompts because the owner is in proximity. The question I would have for all is how often are your own AirTags not in bluetooth proximity with you. My own use (bike & car) are almost always away from bluetooth range from me. That guy walking their dog is away from proximity to wife. Etc.

You are correct. If the airtag is with its owner, it is not considered to be tracking you. This has been the way it worked for quite a long time, perhaps forever.

AirTags don't give the "warning" alert to others if their owner's phone is nearby.

This has not been my experience with the "unwanted tracking alerts" feature for other *non-AirTag* items. Just this past week my wife and I were attending a conference and I got multiple alerts that someone's AirPods have been following me. They were in her purse WITH her phone that is associated with them, and I still got the alert. I know it's already been mentioned that family accounts aren't tied with the unwanted tracking feature, but she is also on my family account.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

This has not been my experience with the "unwanted tracking alerts" feature for other *non-AirTag* items. Just this past week my wife and I were attending a conference and I got multiple alerts that someone's AirPods have been following me. They were in her purse WITH her phone that is associated with them, and I still got the alert. I know it's already been mentioned that family accounts aren't tied with the unwanted tracking feature, but she is also on my family account.

That's fair. AirPods are pretty odd when it comes to tracking, in my experience. I hope it is improved with the Pro v2's but I've not upgraded to those.

 

[BrentD]

That's fair. AirPods are pretty odd when it comes to tracking, in my experience. I hope it is improved with the Pro v2's but I've not upgraded to those.

And that's what makes me wonder how this new partnership or whatever will unfold for other items that aren't AirTags. Would hate to have that experience any time I'm on a bus, plane or train, concert or other event for an extended period around lots of other trackable items.

 

[jimjiminyjim]

Now I can have more notifications that my own devices are tracking me. Brilliant. I’ve completely reset my AirPods Pro multiple times, disassociated them from my Apple ID and set them up as new, and I still regularly get a notification that my AirPods Pro are travelling with me and that I might want to be concerned and find them. So frustrating. No way to tell the phone they are mine - they show up in my devices lists already. Would be nice if these features worked before they branched out even further.

 

[wigby]

Which is ok: they will target another car.

There are plenty of chop shops that don't allow cell phones near the vehicles so that they can easily scan for LoJack, GPS trackers and AirTags. When a car thief gets an alert that there's an AirTag in the vehicle, they are already on their way to an area where there are no people/phone around or straight to the chop shop to find the tag and strip the vehicle of its most valuable parts.

 

[CarAnalogy]

When are they going to let my wife and I see the same air tags on each of our phones?? It's crazy there isn't family sharing on Air Tags yet...

Pretty sure no one at Apple actually has a family because none of the family stuff works very well. And / or they are just trying to sell more AirTags. But I'm betting on apathy rather than malice in this case.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I get the nefarious use issue very well but I don't exactly love companies who came up with the easy tracking working against easy tracking. What's the legit purpose of these things? For me, I want to use them for some added theft protection, so I put one in my car and one in an expensive bike. If either are stolen, I'd like these to help potentially locate and recover them vs. the insurance claim scenario, which likely ends up leading to only more out of pocket to replace since insurance generally pays less than replacement. See the NYC Police story posted yesterday encouraging this very use.

That NYC thing is weird all around. It sounds like a combination of the police not fully understanding the purpose of the AirTags and Apple taking some free publicity.

However, if "safeguards" are going to alert the thieves that these are tracking them so they can find and toss the tracker, I'm not exactly feeling I can get ANYTHING out of this product. It seems it is marching towards becoming only a lost stuff device and not a stolen things tracker. It's great that I can find misplaced car keys or wallet but the found keys do no good if the car itself is missing.

For better or worse, Apple specifically says they are only for lost items and not stolen ones.

It seems as these are evolving to avoid the scant nefarious use case, many good uses are being undermined too. Or more simply, the bad guys are winning: due to THEIR actions, steps are being taken to NOT track them doing another bad thing.

This is everything in the post-911 world especially, but the jerks always ruin things for everyone.

I don't know a complete answer here. Clearly, the stalker issue is a real problem too. But it seems unfortunate that one nefarious use is going to work against many positive uses.

All we can do is what we've been doing in computers for decades. Realizing that no matter what you do people are going to find a way to abuse it and just trying to find the best balance. As usual Apple gets all the press good or bad. Actual bad guys have far better ways but your average abusive boyfriend has more access to AirTags.

I agree that Apple is going too far with the anti-stalking to the point of making them less useful.

 

[steve09090]

Looks like they are trying to decide which is worse...a person being tracked or an item/car/purse etc. being stolen. A stalker or a thief.

Clearly a stalker. Stalkers are dangerous. Thieves steal. Body versus property and there is no reasonable comparison between the two.

 

[DotCom2]

Clearly a stalker. Stalkers are dangerous. Thieves steal. Body versus property and there is no reasonable comparison between the two.

Agreed.