I find this feature still dubious and prone to exploitation.
In all fairness, Apple does only say that "AirTag is designed to
discourage unwanted tracking." (emphasis mine)
Putting myself in attacker's shoes --
1. Disable audio on the device. That's potentially pretty easy. I'd like to see how audio on AirTags is implemented, but I'd bet it's easy to break.
2. Plant AirPod on someone.
The fact that it takes three days for the audio alert to sound already makes that something of a problem anyway.
Plus, if you're stalking somebody like a co-worker, you might see them often enough that the alert would never go off.
So if the device is traveling with a non-owner, that non-owner will get an alert, assuming they have an iDevice. But everyone else - the "one billion other devices" - will simply see a nearby device and might track it on behalf of the attacker.
Might is the key word. Since these are designed primarily to locate
lost items rather than
stolen ones, I suspect that there's a minimum time that an AirTag has to be nearby before an iPhone or other Apple device reports it, so it may not work if somebody is driving around without an iPhone on their person.
Also, remember that it's the location of the iPhone or other Apple device that's reported, not the location of the AirTag itself. If somebody who doesn't have an iPhone is carrying an AirTag and it's picked up by a nearby iPhone, you're going to get a fix on that location, which could be a neighbouring house or apartment. That's more than enough to help you legitimately find a lost item, since once you're in range you can zero in on it more directly, but it's less precise if you're trying to get a fix on somebody's home address or exactly which car they're driving in.
Most importantly, however, I'm fairly confident that Apple can identify the owner of any found AirTag if it's turned over to law enforcement. This is implied in its support document, and of course Apple would be insane not to allow for this. That's a huge risk for a potential stalker to take, since they're basically planting a device on their intended victim that can be easily traced back to them.
If you want to track your kids, it sounds it requires the phones around the children to report the location, which effectively is worse. You're assuming that nearby iphones are opted in, which doesn't necessarily report THEIR location (I have faith in that part), but the problem is that there's no great way to allow your children in this context to detect and nullify a tag on their person. But since they may or may not have phones, this is where the problem is. Do you want strangers placing THEIR tags on your kids? They don't have to be following, they just have to be near.
I think this reveals the problem of people using these for purposes not intended by Apple. These are
item tracking tags, not
kid tracking tags. They're designed to help you find your lost keys or luggage, not to know where your kids are.
If somebody plants a tag on your kid, however, you'll likely find out about it pretty quickly when you pick them up and bring them home. I can guarantee you that if I found an unknown AirTag on my daughter, I'd be calling the police in a heartbeat, and they'd very quickly figure out exactly who that AirTag belongs to. Cops take child stalking/abduction cases
very seriously.
A girl goes to a date with a guy. Guy plants a sound-suppressed airtag in her coat (just assume this is possible for sake of argument). She leaves and goes home alone. Guy stalks girl. Girl sees "Device following you" alert. Does it fully disable the airtag, permanently? Did the alert come the moment she started walking away? How long did it take? All the way home? If the process fully disabled the airtag, is it just from the girl's phone? What about the girl's roommate? Since the device didn't "travel with" the roommate, is that person's iphone now transmitting the stalker's airtag? What if she never checked her phone or the sound was off?
Apple's support document clearly says "Disable AirTag." If an AirTag has been found in that context, I'm confident that Apple will err on the side of caution and just let the finder render it completely inert. This is in the exact same paragraph that advises people to contact law enforcement if they feel that their safety is at risk.
How long the notification takes to appear is an good question, of course — we don't know that yet — but it sounds like it's based on distance travelled, so I imagine it would come up somewhere along the way.
I'm not trying to be paranoid here, I just want to fully understand the boundaries of the process. At the same time, if I'm traveling in an airplane, can another person who happens to be closer to my luggage stowed under the plane disable my airtags? They'd be "Travelling with" ...
I don't imagine AirTags will the kind of range and power to punch through from an aircraft luggage compartment, but admittedly it's a good question and a possible edge case. Perhaps not in an airplane, but possibly on other forms of transportation. I used to regularly ride trains where all of the luggage was stowed at one end of the car, for example, so it's possible somebody sitting near that luggage area would likely get a notification, especially if I ended up sitting at the other end of the train car. Again, I suppose the depends on how far away I have to be from my AirTag before it considers itself to be on its own.
All good questions, though, and definitely points worth thinking about.
