New York AG Sends Warning About Using AirTags For Illegal Purposes

There is a lot of bad press surrounding Apple’s AirTag tracking accessory these days, so much so that it has finally drawn attention from public figures, such as New York’s Attorney General Letitia James who had to publicly tweet and warn people against using the tracking accessory for illegal purposes.

There was also an official post on the AG’s website where James was quoted as saying, “Across the country, Apple AirTags are being misused to track people and their belongings to cause harm. Tracking people without their awareness or consent is a serious felony and will not be tolerated by my office.”

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There have been concerning reports of bad actors using Apple AirTags to track people's locations and personal belongings, and we're issuing guidance to help New Yorkers stay safe.

Tracking people without their awareness is a serious crime, and we won't tolerate it.

— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) February 16, 2022

To Apple’s credit, the company did think about some of the potential issues and have built some protection measures into the AirTags, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. The company recently announced that they will be making further changes in an upcoming update to tackle some of these problems, so it remains to be seen how effective they will be.

So far, we have heard of how the AirTag has been used by people to track vehicles which they would steal later, or being used to stalk other people by hiding them in their cars or coats. More recently, and rather worryingly, modified AirTags have been spotted online where the speakers have been disabled to prevent them from making a sound, which is one of the protective measures Apple had initially put into place.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Gadgets
Tags: airtag, airtags, Legal, Privacy