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Tile Adds Undetectable Anti-Theft Mode to Tracking Devices, With $1 Million Fine If Used for Stalking

...ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

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I can't believe I read this entire thread and no one had posted this yet. :)

Seriously though, as many others have said, you can't squeeze blood from a stone. At least this will probably result in an amusing court case if anything.
 
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So how exactly does this work? What if a thief happens to find this in something they stole…what’s stopping them from turning the table and claiming to be the victim and say they're being stalked?

Or perhaps someone knows someone they dislike has these and gets their hands on one to try to ruin their life?
 
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This just goes to highlight how limiting Airtags are. They're only good for findling lost items, but are worthless for something that is stolen.

One example if an item is moved when it has been sitting still and away from the linked phone, it beeps. Completely the wrong approach. If a theif moves the item wtih an AirTag on it, the AirTag literally lets them know where the AirTag is hidden. Instead it should give a silent alert to the associated phone so th owner knows something has been moved. How dumb can Apple be?

Then there is the well know feature that alerts someone if an AirTag is moving with them that is not their AirTag. Great for anyone concerned about stalking, but then it cannot be used at all to help recover lost items from a thief.

Therefore after initally buying a three pack of Air Tags, I won't but them again. They are mostly junk.
 
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People misunderstand the purpose of airtags and the bluetooth mesh network. Apple gives a rat's ass about airtags. The bluetooth mesh network is a bypass mechanism (bypasses the internet) for the iPhone AI (that is spying on everything on your phone) and reports back to Apple (and, therefore, the government).
 
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TonyC28 said:
I don’t think it would be difficult for Tile to demonstrate harm to their brand and a revenue loss based on the publicity that goes along with this sort of thing. Add in that the bad guy separately and beyond the standard TOS entered into an agreement to not use their product nefariously, I don’t think it’s as laughable as you think.
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As a lawyer with lots of contract and general civil litigation experience, I think it’s as laughable as everyone else thinks.
 
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Here’s an idea. Go ahead and enable this mode, but only after a week of no movement at all. So you put it in a storage box or in with your valuables in your house, but the tracking doesn’t begin for a week of non-movement. This should make it impractical for stalking.
 
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goobot said:
The million dollar fine is just a deterrent. Your id is linked to it so regardless of money the government can send you to jail and I doubt tile really cares about the mill
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Why would government send you to jail? Good luck charging some one, let alone prosecuting, getting jury to convict, and send some one to jail. The whole freaking trials of much more serious crimes have been pushed back for years after Covid.
 
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TechnoMonk said:
Why would government send you to jail? Good luck charging some one, let alone prosecuting, getting jury to convict, and send some one to jail. The whole freaking trials of much more serious crimes have been pushed back for years after Covid.
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Just more time in jail waiting for trial then. People are still getting arrested for all kinds of things. Police aren't taking a vacation until the trial queue goes down.
 
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MacRumors said:
Tile says that customers must register using multi-factor identification and agree to stringent usage terms, which include a $1 million fine if the device ends up being used to track a person without their consent.
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Cute marketing ploy. But, of course, unenforceable.
 
Jakexb said:
Just more time in jail waiting for trial then. People are still getting arrested for all kinds of things. Police aren't taking a vacation until the trial queue goes down.
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What’s the crime? How is Tile going to prove there was a crime? Cops won’t even file report based on tile marketing jumbo jumbo, let alone press charges. There has to be real crime.
 
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iStorm said:
So how exactly does this work? What if a thief happens to find this in something they stole…what’s stopping them from turning the table and claiming to be the victim and say they're being stalked?

Or perhaps someone knows someone they dislike has these and gets their hands on one to try to ruin their life?
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Can’t make this up. Did Tile hire a middle schooler to run their marketing.
 
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goobot said:
The million dollar fine is just a deterrent. Your id is linked to it so regardless of money the government can send you to jail and I doubt tile really cares about the mill
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Thank you. This is incredibly obvious.

1. Someone stalked reports finding one of these.
2. LE requests the info registered to the found tag from Tile
3. Tile happily provides it
4. LE brings the registered person in for questioning
5. The investigation goes from there
6. LE gets a warrant to search the registered person to find something that links them to the stalked
7. Tile can tout in future press releases/statements/whatever how they’ve assisted x amount of LE requests (which is worth way more to Tile than dedicating their resources to chasing down individual fines)

Sure, will it always result in charges? No. Even if charges are brought, will it be a perfect open and shut case every time? No. Will people who are registered to a Tile found on someone else not have any recourse/possible loophole available to them? No.

…but that’s not the point. It’s all a deterrent, and it’s probably a safe bet that the majority of people who would have the kind of resources to mount a successful defense wouldn’t use a Tile they got off Amazon or whatever to stalk a person in the first place—they’d hire a PI or a hacker or whomever.
 
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Jakexb said:
But the tracker is tied to your gov ID. If they find it, they're going to find you.
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Ok, and what crime are they gonna charge you with? This thing will be laughed at civil trials. Good luck sending fine
Silverstring said:
Thank you. This is incredibly obvious.

1. Someone stalked reports finding one of these.
2. LE requests the info registered to the found tag from Tile
3. Tile happily provides it
4. LE brings the registered person in for questioning
5. The investigation goes from there
6. LE gets a warrant to search the registered person to find something that links them to the stalked
7. Tile can tout in future press releases/statements/whatever how they’ve assisted x amount of LE requests (which is worth way more to Tile than dedicating their resources to chasing down individual fines)
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thats not how it works in real life. Makes a good movie story or a Netflix show.
 
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So just because the device doesn’t alert you that you are being tracked, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t alert Tile. So they would know who is being stalked, and who has had something stolen. Pretty clever, Apple should implement something like this, but Apple is pretty clear that air tags are for finding lost things not stolen things.
 
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