Apple’s latest product, AirTags, have some people spooked, and not without cause. The tiny connected trackers are designed to help you find things that you’ve lost. But tracking devices also present a danger to many people, mostly women, of being weaponised by people they should be able to trust; including partners and parents.
All smart home devices can be, and are, misused by controlling family members. And it often seems as though the people, mostly men, who create these products don’t consider what could happen if they’re misused. But in a refreshing turn of events, and in contrast to many other tracking devices on the market, it’s clear a lot of consideration of this problem has gone into AirTags.
AirTags can alert your iPhone if they find themselves travelling with you unexpectedly.
The privacy protections built into AirTags start at a basic level. No one else can see the location of your items, even if they’re part of your iCloud family, and there is no way to enable that. I can’t see where my wife’s keys are from my phone, and thus can’t track her using them, and vice versa.
More than that, though, iPhone users are notified of unwanted trackers moving with them once they’ve left the proximity of the owner’s phone. So if someone puts an AirTag in your bag to stalk you, and you’re using an iPhone, you’ll get a notification to make you aware once you move away from them.
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If you’ve just taken your partner’s keys to work by accident, you can ask your phone to stop notifying you about that particular AirTag. Or, if you weren’t expecting a strange AirTag, you will be given instructions on how to deactivate it by removing the battery.
One caveat to the system is that it won’t be able to alert you in the same way if you’re using an Android phone. Instead, the AirTag will beep if it’s been away from its owner for a period of time — around three days — which may alert you to its unexpected presence, unless it’s being muffled or you regularly share a physical space with your stalker.
eSafety Comissioner Julie Inman Grant said it was important to understand the danger of location tracking technology.
“Apple has taken steps to build safety features into the design of the AirTags; I would hope that the safety protections put in place by Apple are sufficient and their approach does not cause a false sense of safety around these products,” she said.