In a nutshell: When it involves utilizing trackers for stalking individuals, there has not been any knowledge exhibiting whether or not it is actually an issue or simply that media has been paying extra consideration to it. While there are not any formal research on the exercise, a latest survey of regulation enforcement data preliminarily exhibits that it is extra frequent than we expect.
Motherboard lately requested incident experiences from a number of police departments that particularly talked about Apple AirTags. It acquired 150 paperwork involving the system spanning the final eight months. One-third have been stalking-related. Most have been from girls, with just one man reporting his ex had used an AirTag to stalk him. The system was planted within the sufferer’s automobile in half the incidents. Most of the opposite experiences have been robbery- and theft-related.
Although these stats appear to point out a major quantity of incidents involving AirTag stalking, it’s one thing that has not totally been appeared into earlier than. There is not any different knowledge to check it to, and no one has appeared even additional again to see if different units have been used like this earlier than AirTags got here alongside. Is it a problem unique to Apple?
When Apple initially introduced AirTags, it touted its anti-stalking security measures. Until then, the media devoted little or no, if any, time to such protection. Using different trackers like Tile to stalk individuals by no means made headlines, despite the fact that it has fewer safety measures on this regard.
Motherboard’s examine raises extra questions than it solutions. Is it an occasion of Apple calling consideration to a nonexistent drawback and giving dangerous actors the thought, or only a matter of the media paying extra consideration to it now that it has been introduced up? Either approach it looks like Apple let a cat out of a bag. More thorough research may present whether or not tracker stalking is on the rise and if the issue existed earlier than Apple introduced it to public consciousness.
