How to Disable an Unknown AirTag Found Moving With You to Prevent Being Tracked

[KeithJenner]

There is absolutely zero point in someone being able to stop their own phone from reporting an airtags location if they think they are being tracked whilst still allowing every phone that they walk past do so.

Whatever the actual ability for someone to disable an airtag in this situation is (and this hasn’t yet been confirmed as far as I can tell) it is clear that any such disabling will be total and will result in the tag no longer sending any location data to the owner.

Anything else would be completely pointless.

 

[fischersd]

I don't think it will be able to work that way, or else all these stalkers everyone seems to be worried about would just mark the AirTag as lost before they even put it on the person they want to follow.

Yep, but the alternative is that Apple is telling thieves that the item that they've stolen has a tracking tag in it.

I think, bottom line, if you notice something is lost/stolen, you need to work on retrieving it quickly.

If your condo was burgled while you were on a 3 week vacation? You may be out of luck.

 

[fischersd]

Seeing as Apple already have bus / train routes mapped I'd guess that they have algorithms in place that can detect the % likelihood of someone using public transport vs someone following you.

For example, IF a tag is dropped on you before getting on a train vs the owner being in close proximity. Or if a tag is dropped on you while on the train and continues to follow you after disembarking while the owners proximity diminishes you'd get an alert.

I think the solution to your regular commuter cohorts getting the tracking notification is simple - if YOUR tag is within range of YOUR iPhone, then obviously you're using it to keep an item with you safe.

Apple's been working on these for awhile - hopefully they've already found all of the corner cases through internal beta testing.

 

[KeithJenner]

Yep, but the alternative is that Apple is telling thieves that the item that they've stolen has a tracking tag in it.

I think, bottom line, if you notice something is lost/stolen, you need to work on retrieving it quickly.

If your condo was burgled while you were on a 3 week vacation? You may be out of luck.

If all it takes for a stalker to be able to circumnavigate the privacy controls is to put the tag into lost mode then they may as well not bother.

As has been said many times on these threads, this isn’t an anti theft device. Apple aren’t going to weaken the privacy controls because it stops the item being used for something is wasn’t designed for.

 

[KeithJenner]

I think the solution to your regular commuter cohorts getting the tracking notification is simple - if YOUR tag is within range of YOUR iPhone, then obviously you're using it to keep an item with you safe.

Apple's been working on these for awhile - hopefully they've already found all of the corner cases through internal beta testing.

The train scenario does raise an interesting point though.

If I leave my bag somewhere with a tag in it then the tag should help me find the bag, especially if it isn’t moving.

However, if I leave my bag on a train then the fact that I am no longer there means that at some point the other passengers may get a warning and potentially someone could disable it, thereby negating the use of the tag.

I speculated yesterday that there could be the possibility of the system being a bit more clever about this. For example, if the tag is being picked up by a dozen people then it is more likely that a scenario like this has happened, compared to just one person. The fact that these people are all on a train line is another clue.

However, in the privacy scenarios that we are talking about, the initial contact is likely to have been on public transport so ignoring it is a privacy risk.

In the stalking scenario it probably wouldn’t just be the person being tracked who would be picking up the tag to start with.

Ways which this could work is that it doesn’t warn people if there are lots of people linked, but if someone the. Leaves that group with the tag (or gets off the train) then they get a warning.

Lots of unanswered questions still, and I have no idea how easy it is to set up these solutions in practice.

 

[saudade]

Does she come home and bitch you out? If not then who cares?

Dubbo 2 drunk

What about this? My wife put one in her purse to keep track of it. I work from home. When she’s going to work, she leaves her purse at home. Will I get annoying lost messages all day long? Or will it learn not to produce them around your own home?

Dude u can replace her airtag 4 yours so u can track her 2 c where she really is u know what i mean? Thiz is gre8 2 track my female and i gonna put thiz thing in her purse, car and wig 2

 

[michaelb5000]

If all it takes for a stalker to be able to circumnavigate the privacy controls is to put the tag into lost mode then they may as well not bother.

As has been said many times on these threads, this isn’t an anti theft device. Apple aren’t going to weaken the privacy controls because it stops the item being used for something is wasn’t designed for.

There are a lot of stupid criminals and so some folks will do stuff like this. But most stalkers including domestic violence stalkers, are generally going to avoid using devices that are authenticated as owned by them and locked to an icloud account and their iphone. Yes, they could use a burner phone, maybe, but it is just not a very good plan. When there are actual GPS trackers that do this that aren't directly linked to you. My guess is that Apple is not going to answer public questions about the scope of what they will release to police, but at least for the owner of the tag, ie the stalker, the only reasonable assumption is that Apple can and will give that info up pursuant to a subpoena.

 

[fischersd]

As has been said many times on these threads, this isn’t an anti theft device. Apple aren’t going to weaken the privacy controls because it stops the item being used for something is wasn’t designed for.

Right...because the opinions of people on here dictate how Apple actually does things?

One of the major use cases of these is to protect your items from theft - me, I suspect Apple's figured out some clever algorithms to try to do both - protect individual privacy as well as allowing you to find the bugger that walked away with your laptop bag.

We'll discover the corner cases once we're all testing these....then Apple will make changes for the things we report.

 

[mpavilion]

Well, if you already know for sure someone is tracking you by dropping a tag into your bag, you could search for it and throw it away. Or head straight to the police station to report unauthorised tracking.

If not, the world will end up with a lot of disabled airtag.

While there is a need to ensure privacy is protected, there is also a need to balance it up. Fact is that each airtag is tagged to an appleid and only amateurs will use this to track people now that it is widely publicised. There are other options out there to track people without them knowing.

Maybe it’s well hidden? And if you can’t find it, the police can’t do anything. I’m pretty sure “disable”means “disable.”

 

[jhollington]

However, if I leave my bag on a train then the fact that I am no longer there means that at some point the other passengers may get a warning and potentially someone could disable it, thereby negating the use of the tag.

There are lots of ways that someone could disable the tag, but hopefully most people won't panic and do so unless they think they're actually being stalked.

For instance, if I find somebody's bag on a train with an AirTag on it, I'm more likely to scan it and figure out who it belongs to (although as Apple explained in a recent Fast Company interview, you can only do that if it's been placed in "Lost Mode"). However, there's also the fact that many people will do exactly what they'd do if they found a bag without an AirTag, which is to either leave it alone or turn it in to a lost and found somewhere.

Granted, there are some folks who might panic when receiving one of these alerts, but they're not "stalker alerts" —they're presented in a fairly benign way, simply advising someone that an AirTag has been found moving with them, and leaving people to draw their own conclusions as to what that means.

These alerts also only appear on iPhones running iOS 14.5 or later, so that will rule out at least a few less tech-savvy folks 😂

I speculated yesterday that there could be the possibility of the system being a bit more clever about this. For example, if the tag is being picked up by a dozen people then it is more likely that a scenario like this has happened, compared to just one person. The fact that these people are all on a train line is another clue.

Interesting idea. The key to the notification is also that the tag has to be "travelling with you," and so far Apple hasn't really said how far it has to go before that kicks in, or even how close it has to be. If you leave your bag behind on a train or bus, people are going to be getting on and off throughout the trip, and there's a good chance the range is such that not everybody on the vehicle will be close enough to be recognized.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the proximity range for this alert is fairly tight, since it's solely intended to be an anti-stalking warning. It's highly unlikely that any AirTag more than a car-length away from someone is being used for stalking purposes.

 

[jhollington]

Yes, they could use a burner phone, maybe, but it is just not a very good plan.

Not just a burner phone — which would have to be a modern enough iPhone to support iOS 14.5 — but also a burner Apple ID.

My guess is that Apple is not going to answer public questions about the scope of what they will release to police, but at least for the owner of the tag, ie the stalker, the only reasonable assumption is that Apple can and will give that info up pursuant to a subpoena.

It's already strongly implied in an Apple support document, but Apple VP Kaiann Drance also just told Fast Company outright that this is exactly the case:

“If you are concerned that there’s a risk of your being tracked you could contact law enforcement. What the AirTag’s serial number is used for is when you first set up your AirTag it is paired with an Apple ID along with some additional information such as your name, your email address, your date of birth, and things like that, which Apple could provide to law enforcement if asked for, with the proper warrants and process.”

With a proper warrant, they'll readily hand over every piece of identifying information associated with your Apple ID — and frankly I applaud them for doing so in this case.

Granted, it might not be a huge stretch for a determined stalker to set up an entirely fake Apple ID, but again that's a lot of trouble to go to for a solution that's not very reliable in the first place.

 

[insomniac86]

No buffer time needed. The alerts only go off if the tag isn't with the owner (e.g. it's away from its paired iPhone). From Apple's AirTag page:



Likewise, I don't imagine you can disable an AirTag if its owner's iPhone is still nearby.


Essentially, yes. Apple notes in a support article that you can mute the alerts from any AirTag for one day. If the AirTag belongs to someone in your Family Sharing group, you'll have the option to mute it indefinitely.

While this doesn't necessarily help for all of your friends, as noted above it's not going to be an issue when you're simply travelling with others, only if you happen to be carrying one of their AirTags when they're not with you, like on a borrowed item, in which case the one-day mute is probably sufficient.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I was a bit of an idiot and somehow missed the statement on their website:

Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner.

Cheers.

 

[KeithJenner]

Right...because the opinions of people on here dictate how Apple actually does things?

One of the major use cases of these is to protect your items from theft - me, I suspect Apple's figured out some clever algorithms to try to do both - protect individual privacy as well as allowing you to find the bugger that walked away with your laptop bag.

We'll discover the corner cases once we're all testing these....then Apple will make changes for the things we report.

Of course, things may change in the future, but you can watch the apple event, read the website, and look at all of the information that Apple have give about airbags and you can count the number of times that they mention theft. It is zero.

Lost - mentioned loads of time, as is privacy.

At the moment, given any choice between anti theft or privacy it bis quite clear that Apple are erring on the side of privacy.

In the future, who knows? When these were first announced I thought about getting some to put in bags or my car as an anti theft device. I gave up on the idea fairly quickly. Firstly because it was clear that privacy settings were going to be an issue (some of us have been discussing this for months now), but also, what am I actually going to do with that info. The bag will be discarded (less the valuables) way before I get to it, and do I really want to be confronting the thief anyway? Do apple want stories of people getting hurt after following the tags?

I may get some for travel if that works, but to be quite honest, I think anti theft is more hassle than it's worth.

 

[jhollington]

....then Apple will make changes for the things we report.

I admire your optimism

 

[jhollington]

Of course, things may change in the future, but you can watch the apple event, read the website, and look at all of the information that Apple have give about airbags and you can count the number of times that they mention theft. It is zero.

This.

At the moment, given any choice between anti theft or privacy it bis quite clear that Apple are erring on the side of privacy.

It's basically impossible for an AirTag to reliably know whether it's being carried by a thief or a stalking victim. As far as the AirTag is concerned, they're the exact same thing — both are carrying your AirTag, they're just doing it for entirely different reasons.

Besides, the real value of using the Find My network for anti-theft isn't with AirTags anyway, since those are trivial to discard or disable. Even if they're hidden it's not going to be long before thieves know how to look for them. It's the devices with integrated Find My, like the VanMoof e-bike, where it's going to be much more practical, and there's no indication that these have the same anti-stalking features built in (although arguably the Chipolo tags probably should).

 

[The Chosen One]

Also good to note;

SHARE LOCATION — AirTag owners can choose to temporarily or permanently share the location of their AirTags with other people through the "Find My" app. When sharing temporarily, users can decide how long the sharing should last, or can manually end it before the timer expires. That could prove really useful when you think you've left something at the office or at a friend's house and can share the tag's location with a colleague or friend.

A lot of the problems people are mentioning are either not a problem/'solved' or something they are making a problem off/shouldn't use an airtag for.
It's a solid product but not meant for everything.

 

[W£S]

There is absolutely zero point in someone being able to stop their own phone from reporting an airtags location if they think they are being tracked whilst still allowing every phone that they walk past do so.

Whatever the actual ability for someone to disable an airtag in this situation is (and this hasn’t yet been confirmed as far as I can tell) it is clear that any such disabling will be total and will result in the tag no longer sending any location data to the owner.

Anything else would be completely pointless.

Those who are concern that they are being tracked can just remove the battery till he/she gets to the police station. After all it is removable.

If tags can be easily disabled, airtag might not even serve the key purpose which is the recovery of lost items.

For example, if I left my wallet on a bus and found out mins later, I would like to be able to track where it is, maybe even take a taxi to retrieve it.

If anyone can disable it, it wouldn’t be too long before someone on the bus think that he/she is being illegally tracked and disable it.

If so, how does airtag fulfill the role of retrieving lost items?

 

[mpavilion]

Those who are concern that they are being tracked can just remove the battery till he/she gets to the police station. After all it is removable.

If tags can be easily disabled, airtag might not even serve the key purpose which is the recovery of lost items.

For example, if I left my wallet on a bus and found out mins later, I would like to be able to track where it is, maybe even take a taxi to retrieve it.

If anyone can disable it, it wouldn’t be too long before someone on the bus think that he/she is being illegally tracked and disable it.

If so, how does airtag fulfill the role of retrieving lost items?

If someone gets the notification on a bus, they can probably assume they're not being tracked (and it's just someone else's tag). It's only if they still get pinged when they're walking home – or after arriving home – that they would conclude they're being stalked, and have good reason to disable the AirTag.

 

[W£S]

Maybe it’s well hidden? And if you can’t find it, the police can’t do anything. I’m pretty sure “disable”means “disable.”

Once it alerts you on your iPhone, you have the option to trigger the sound alert to help you locate it.

 

[W£S]

If someone gets the notification on a bus, they can probably assume they're not being tracked (and it's just someone else's tag). It's only if they still get pinged when they're walking home – or after arriving home – that they would conclude they're being stalked, and have good reason to disable the AirTag.

Frankly speaking, many will get paranoid. You just need one of the tens there to be paranoid.

Fact is Apple is already addressing the privacy issue by
a) alerting you on your iPhone
b) helping you find the airtag with sound alert
c) removable battery should you decide to disable it and keep it as evidence
d) advise you to go to police
e) each tag is traceable as it is tagged to Apple id

They need to address the bus/train scenario whereby someone left their items there and end up being unable to trace their item (the main purpose of airtag). This scenario is not even a theft scenario, but a lost item scenario.

I too believe that Apple would address both, probably via some backend algorithms, which will likely improve further with actual use cases and statistics/complaints over the years to come

 

[jinnyman]

I'm not sure how well Apple has implemented this.

What if I give my bag with airtag to my wife in shopping mall while I'm at different location in the mall? Will there be some range of acceptable distance between my phone and tag to prevent it from sounding alarm? What if my wife uses android phone? Do I have to care about turning off tag and turn on ?

I'm totally with Apple on preventing the tag from tracking other people. If left it trackable, it's size can easily lead to shaddy use. But I also don't want to micro manage stuff too much. Perhaps some kind of "it's ok to track me" feature or something that only can be activated after and by person?

 

[jhollington]

Those who are concern that they are being tracked can just remove the battery till he/she gets to the police station. After all it is removable.

If tags can be easily disabled, airtag might not even serve the key purpose which is the recovery of lost items.

Reading Apple's support document on this more carefully in light of the recent Fast Company interview I don't think it's there's actually a remote "Disable Tag" option at all (emphasis mine):

To disable the AirTag and stop sharing your location, tap Instructions to Disable AirTag and follow the onscreen steps.

From the Fast Company article where they spoke with a pair of Apple executives:

And if you do find a strange AirTag in your possession, you can use any NFC-capable phone to scan it. Tapping the notification that appears in the NFC reader will take you to an Apple website with instructions on how to disable the AirTag and its tracking capabilities immediately—by simply removing its battery.

I'm pretty sure what this actually means is that the Find My app will simply provide instructions on how to remove the battery to disable the AirTag. There's really no reason to do otherwise, since as it's already been pointed out, you can emit a sound to find the AirTag, and it makes sense that you shouldn't be able to disable an AirTag unless it's actually in your hand.

 

[jhollington]

What if I give my bag with airtag to my wife in shopping mall while I'm at different location in the mall? Will there be some range of acceptable distance between my phone and tag to prevent it from sounding alarm? What if my wife uses android phone? Do I have to care about turning off tag and turn on ?

Actually, Apple has addressed that in a few ways...

1. The AirTag won't emit a sound at all until it's been away from your for more than three days.
2. If your wife has an iPhone, she may at some point get a notification that an AirTag has been found moving with her. However, since this is based on travelling to different locations, simply walking around a mall may not be enough to trigger this.
3. Your wife can disable this notification for a single day, or indefinitely if your iCloud accounts are part of the same Family Sharing plan.
4. If your wife has an Android phone, she'll won't get any notification at all unless she's carrying your bag for more than three days without you around.

#4 is the only edge case in this situation, and it's not yet clear how Apple has addressed this, if at all.

I'm totally with Apple on preventing the tag from tracking other people. If left it trackable, it's size can easily lead to shaddy use. But I also don't want to micro manage stuff too much. Perhaps some kind of "it's ok to track me" feature or something that only can be activated after and by person?

That's basically already there, although the other person needs to have an iPhone and it's up to them to disable the notifications. From Apple's support document:

If the AirTag is attached to an item you're borrowing, you can tap Pause Safety Alerts to turn off "AirTag Detected" notifications for one day. If you're borrowing an AirTag from a member of your Family Sharing group, you can turn off Safety Alerts for one day or indefinitely.

 

[sqenixs]

For me to buy these I need the answer to the following questions:

- will my phone get a notification if the tag gets too far away from me? If so, how far away or how long until I get the notification? The smaller the number here the better.

- if the tag is not near me, how close do other people's iphones need to be to the tag for them to get a notification? And how long from being away from me until the tag notifies other people? Or how long does it need to be near other people before they are notified? The larger the number here the better.

I'm not sure I will get satisfactory answers to these questions without buying the tags myself to test them. So I will probably have to buy anyway.

 

[W£S]

Reading Apple's support document on this more carefully in light of the recent Fast Company interview I don't think it's there's actually a remote "Disable Tag" option at all (emphasis mine):



From the Fast Company article where they spoke with a pair of Apple executives:



I'm pretty sure what this actually means is that the Find My app will simply provide instructions on how to remove the battery to disable the AirTag. There's really no reason to do otherwise, since as it's already been pointed out, you can emit a sound to find the AirTag, and it makes sense that you shouldn't be able to disable an AirTag unless it's actually in your hand.

Great find. This is exactly how I believe and hope it will be implemented.

Meets both privacy and intended purpose to locate lost items.