I really hope these Airtags can reduce theft. Living in SF I had so many bikes, bags and motorcycles stolen. I'd love to have an Airtag in these things and show the police where my stolen item was. I wonder what law enforcement's response is going to be with the airtags? Will having an Airtag's location be enough for a warrent? Will people become vigilantes and try to get their stuff back without law enforcement?
Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
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Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#32This really feels like a losing battle - especially the part where you only get warned about being stalked by the AirTag if you have an iPhone. Having the technology to know where things are is great but we need to figure out how to account for bad actors somehow. I don’t have answers but tech companies can’t create the tools that enable harm and then wash their hands of it. Good for Apple for doing _something_, poin…
> especially the part where you only get warned about being stalked by the AirTag if you have an iPhone I believe that's not 100% true because of a final failsafe: the AirTag will start making noise if it's separated for too long (the definition of which could be an issue) from the owner's iPhone. That failsafe works if the person doesn't even have a smartphone. I don't know if there _is_ a perfect solution for this,…
As a caveat to that, from the reviews it seems the sound is produced by vibrating the outer shell.
I wouldn’t be surprised if removing the outershell or altering it would stop it making much noise. We’re in a situation where there is intention to hide the device, so making some effort to make it silent should be taken into account.
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#33I really hope these Airtags can reduce theft. Living in SF I had so many bikes, bags and motorcycles stolen. I'd love to have an Airtag in these things and show the police where my stolen item was. I wonder what law enforcement's response is going to be with the airtags? Will having an Airtag's location be enough for a warrent? Will people become vigilantes and try to get their stuff back without law enforcement?
> I wonder what law enforcement's response is going to be with the airtags?
"Sorry, we have too many other cases"
> Will having an Airtag's location be enough for a warrent?
Probably not (see answer #1)
> Will people become vigilantes and try to get their stuff back without law enforcement?
Some of them, surely. Most of them, no.
We already see this with things like bicycles that people are able to track down on Craigslist.
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#34All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find device, not one that gives away its position (by warning the thief). I also want an easy mechanism to give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back.
It gets back to picking a purpose for the device and tradeoffs for privacy and the rest.
Airtags are not for finding stolen things. They're for finding lost things.
I think what you described is a privacy nightmare that Apple very rightly wants to avoid. They do not want to make a small device that is hard to find and doesn't give itself away to allow people to track each other. At Apple's scale, it will be abused and there would be significant negative attention on Apple for that.
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#35There are a lot of comments here about how useless these protections are, because A or B already exist, or C works better for stalking.
I think most of those comments are missing the real point here. If an Apple product were ever used to stalk - or God forbid, harm - an individual, it would be a big national story. If a Tile or a Samsung tag (or an amazon gps tracker made for stalking) were used in the same way, it would likely only be mentioned in passing if the story were reported at all.
That's why it's so important for Apple to do this. Additional benefit - this may push other vendors to do similar things, pushing stalkers back to more tailored devices. That's still helpful, as it's a lot easier to show intent if someone uses a device like that (as opposed to 'whoops, I lost my airtag).
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#36Here's a crazy hypothetical for some mulling...
Let's say an abuser does use this, and goes on to track someone and then kills them (or commits some other very serious crime). The cops get involved, they start looking into it and discover (through a lapse in other privacy elements of this technology) that a third-party's iPhone was the one that gave away the location.
What are the third parties' legal defenses from the law to avoid being labeled an accomplice here?
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#37Are these domestic abuse activists aware that GPS tracking devices already exist and have existed for a long time? See here for an example [0]. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Real-time-Tracker-Worldwide-Coverage-...
A) Apple doesn't sell those and wouldn't sell those
B) The airtags are more capable than those, more affordable, and easier to use
C) If you own an airtag, this will be available on a moment's notice. Is your wife going to get lunch with a friend? take it off your keyring and throw it in the glovebox. Boom, now you've got realtime tracking in about 5 seconds.
This obviously won't solve the problem of domestic abuse that existed before airtags were introduced, but it will go a long way towards not making it worse.
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#38I must have lived a sheltered life because none of these concerns crossed my mind.
That's what we call privilege, and why it's actually great to build diverse teams so they can bring concerns that others wouldn't think of.
Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#39I must have lived a sheltered life because none of these concerns crossed my mind.
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Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections
#40All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find device, not one that gives away its position (by warning the thief). I also want an easy mechanism to give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back.
I don’t know where you are, but in the US, if I gave the police a literal GPS coordinate of a stolen good, I still wouldnt expect them to actually go there and find it unless it’s of exceptionally high value (car, etc).