Another AirTag implicated in a harassment case!

Buying an AirTag can sometimes save you the day, especially when you lose your things and want to find them by ringing the little beacon. This incorporates a chip Bluetooth to communicate with the rest of the Apple ecosystem and can thus be geolocated in real time using a mobile app. The problem is that anyone can also use it to track a loved one – or not – without their consent… Two women felt that they had already been “spied on” in this way a while ago just a few days.

However, a similar mishap has just happened again, again in the United States. A sixty-something has indeed placed several AirTags in a victim’s car who then discovered the devices thanks to the dedicated alert. This is triggered when a device that does not belong to you pings the same positions as you for several hundred meters. If and only if your iPhone’s airplane mode is not activated. It is therefore possible to slip through the cracks but this time, the complainant can thank Cupertino for having developed the recognition functionality.

Facts

In reality, it turns out that the target already seemed to know the criminal who was following her with the AirTags because her number was blocked in her iPhone. But such a restriction did not stop him, he went so far as to assure the police that the person he was watching was his wife. Under oath, the statement will eventually be proven false and the man will end up behind bars. Currently awaiting trial, his bail is set at three thousand dollars at this time.

According to the investigation, the details of which were shared in the local media, a first AirTag was placed on the spare wheel. A second was hidden in a wallet, inside a plastic bag while a last was found by the authorities even under the cabin of the vehicle.

A phenomenon that could fade

In reality, GPS beacons are not new and have been on the market for several decades. But it is true that their format has seriously reduced over time. With this, Apple has clearly democratized the concept (even if it’s Bluetooth under the hood here). But it is worth remembering that the Find My app has actually been available on iPhones for a long time. And while cases like today’s dossier also arose in the early days of the platform, these are now anecdotal.

By waiting a few months, until the general public is aware of the existence of the alert that is triggered during the unwanted follow-up, offenses are therefore likely to see their numbers drop here too.