Recently, Apple was sued by two women alleging AirTags were used to stalk and harass them. The former partners of these women used the Airtags by Apple to track their movements in real time.
A class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that accuses Apple of failing to implement safeguards to prevent the misuse of Airtags.
Ideally, Airtags are meant to track objects like bags and purses. In the past, Apple claimed that AirTags contain several measures to prevent unwanted tracking. For instance, AirTags make a beeping noise when they are separated from an owner for a particular amount of time.
Furthermore, if an Airtag is found in the vicinity of a person with whom it’s not registered that person will be alerted via a message on his phone. Sadly, all the security measures mentioned above are still insufficient to ensure complete safety.
The lawsuit says that Apple’s safeguards were “woefully inadequate,” partly because they don’t automatically protect Android smartphone users unless they download a particular app to get notified about Airtags.
One of the ladies namely Lauren Hughes who filed the case stated that her ex-boyfriend was using an AirTag to track her back in August 2021 after their three-month relationship ended.
When she was temporarily staying at a hotel she received a notification on her phone stating that an unknown AirTag was traveling with her. The Airtag was very well hidden in the wheel well of her car and it was wrapped in plastic.
The second lady stated that her former spouse used an AirTag to spy on her by placing the device in their child’s backpack. After she decided to disable the AirTag the second one popped out of nowhere.
As of now, Apple has not yet issued a comment regarding the lawsuit but in the past, Apple did state that,
“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products.”
