Some Important Follow-Up on Apple's AirTag Stalking Problem

Apple just announced some much-needed improvements to the Find My network specifically addressing the stalking concerns surrounding AirTags and other Find My accessories — which I discussed at length in a recent post. The list of changes is lengthy (which is good), and addresses many areas of improvement to the Find My network's privacy and anti-stalking feature-set. Chance Miller covered all of the changes in detail over at 9to5Mac, but in short the list of promised improvements includes:

• Clear language during AirTags setup about the intent of the product, and their anti-stalking features.
• Improved nearby device alerts that more-specifically identify the device detected near you
• Expanded support documentation on what users should do if they get such a Find My alert.
• Availability of the Precision Finding feature to recipients of "unwanted tracker" notifications.
• On-device alerts when nearby AirTags begin playing a chime in an attempt to be found.
• "Refined unwanted tracking alert logic" — hopefully improvements to the required duration before an alert, etc.
• Louder AirTag tones to make finding them much easier.

All of these improvements are very good iterations on an already-outstanding system. As I harped on in my previous post, AirTags and the Find My network stand entirely alone in the tracker market in terms of anti-stalking protections, and these additions only reaffirm that position. I even posited that Apple's approach to AirTags privacy features might result in more creeps getting caught, as opposed to any increase in stalking in general, due to AirTags automatically alerting any would-be victims. Apple provided some commentary (albeit lacking in specifics) on this topic in their post as well:

We have been actively working with law enforcement on all AirTag-related requests we’ve received. Based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.

Every AirTag has a unique serial number, and paired AirTags are associated with an Apple ID. Apple can provide the paired account details in response to a subpoena or valid request from law enforcement. We have successfully partnered with them on cases where information we provided has been used to trace an AirTag back to the perpetrator, who was then apprehended and charged.

The fact that every AirTag has a unique ID, is tied to an Apple ID, and alerts its victims to its presence makes it an incredibly bad choice for creeps to commit crimes; as I speculated, a quick subpoena for the owner of a malicious AirTag provides law enforcement with all the information they need to make a quick arrest — and Apple seems more than happy to help with such efforts (as they should be).

The only major component missing from Apple's AirTags adjustment announcement are accommodations for any Android-users who may fall victim to stalking. Chance Miller sums up the issue nicely:

Going forward, the biggest hole in the Find My and AirTag alerts ecosystem continues to be on the Android side of things. While Apple does offer a “Tracker Detect” application to locate nearby AirTags with an Android device, the app doesn’t scan for nearby accessories in the background. Instead, it only scans a user’s surroundings when the user initiates the scan.

It might require some sort of cross-platform collaboration between Apple and Google, but ideally there’s more that can be done in this regard to protect Android users.

I couldn't agree more — I think if Apple partnered with Google to bring background tracker scanning to Android, all of the obvious holes in the Find My network would be patched and any would-be stalkers using AirTags would probably just be signing up to be ID'd and quite possibly arrested.