AirTag Make It 'Frighteningly Easy' to Stalk Anyone

When the AirTag first launched, there were a lot of concerns about its safety and privacy. Many believed that the tracking tags could make it piece of cake to rail anyone. On its part, Apple tree highlighted several privacy measures congenital into AirTags to ensure they cannot be used to track anyone. However, it looks similar these measures are not enough as the AirTags make it "frighteningly like shooting fish in a barrel" to stalk anyone.

A Washinton Post reporter immune his colleague to runway him using an AirTag for a week. While the reporter's iPhone did warn him near an unregistered AirTag moving with him and the tracker did ring afterwards 3 days, the measures are non enough and tin can exist easily circumvented by most. The warning most the unknown AirTag will only show up on iPhones, which means 1 can easily utilise information technology to runway Android users.

Read: AirTag FAQ: Everything You Demand to Know

As for the alarm, the problem with it is that information technology rang for only about 15 seconds and it was not loud enough.

The sound measured at most near threescore decibels from three feet away — not much louder than the birds singing outside my window. And information technology lasted merely about 15 seconds, after which the AirTag went silent for several hours and then started chirping for another 15 seconds.

The speaker volume is quite like shooting fish in a barrel to muffle by applying pressure on the white plastic cover of the AirTag. If someone manages to sneak an AirTag into tight car seats or tap, the victim might never be able to hear the audio. And even so, the alarm ringing after three days still gives one enough of time to stalk someone. An Apple tree executive defended the timeframe maxim information technology did not want to disturb customers who borrowed an AirTag from a family fellow member.

Apple tree's Drance said when the visitor chose that window, it was weighing how alarms might disturb customers who are just borrowing a family member's backpack or leave an item accidentally backside. "We wanted to residuum how these alerts are going off in the environment too as the unwanted tracking," she said.

There can exist scenarios where an abuser who is stalking their victim ends upwardly meeting them before the three-day period, thereby resetting the AirTag inaugural. This ways the AirTag will never make a sound, and the victim will never know they are existence stalked.

Our Have

Information technology is articulate that there'due south a lot Apple can do to ensure AirTag cannot be used for stalking purposes. As the company gains more feedback about AirTag'due south usage in daily life, it might come upward with better security measures. But as things stand right now, the AirTag can be used to stem anyone hands.

[Via The Washington Post]