Apple AirTags Have Become Weapon of Choice for Stalkers, Class Action Alleges

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Apple faces a proposed class action that alleges the company’s AirTags have “revolutionized the scope, breadth, and ease of location-based stalking.”

The 41-page lawsuit, filed in California on December 5, says that although the stated purpose of the roughly quarter-sized AirTags is to transmit a precise location signal to help a consumer locate a missing item, the product has, in reality, “become the weapon of choice of stalkers and abusers.” 

As the case tells it, this is not surprising to Apple as, prior to the release of AirTags, advocates and technologists “urged the company to rethink the product and to consider its inevitable use in stalking.” 

“In response,” the suit says, “Apple heedlessly forged ahead, dismissing concerns and pointing to mitigation features it claimed rendered the devices ‘stalker proof.’” 

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Immediately after the $29 product’s 2021 release, and consistently since, the lawsuit says, reports have surfaced of people “finding AirTags placed in their purses, in or on their cars, and even sewn into the lining of their clothes” by stalkers looking to track their movements. According to the filing, at least two murders have occurred for which the culprit used an AirTag to track the victim. 

Although the tech giant touted AirTags as “stalker proof,” the company has spent the last two years “scrambling to address its failures in protecting people from unwanted, dangerous tracking,” the complaint says, calling Apple’s purported protections “totally inadequate” and essentially useless as far as warning individuals that they are being tracked. 

Though stalking can manifest in numerous ways, one of the most common is through unwanted and repeated behaviors such as phone calls, texts, visits, gifts, internet posts or any other act that would create fear in a reasonable person, the case begins. The filing stresses that this fear “undermines and erodes a victim’s autonomy” while drastically disrupting their daily life. Per the case, technology has given stalkers more tools, such as real-time location trackers, with which to track victims. 

What separates the AirTags from competitor products is the device’s “unparalleled accuracy,” ease of use and affordability, the complaint relays. The device works by emitting signals that are detected by Bluetooth sensors in Apple devices, with the sensors comprising Apple’s “FindMy” network nationwide, the suit says. When a device on the network detects a signal from a missing AirTag, it sends the location data to Apple, who then shows the AirTag’s owner on a map exactly where the device is, the case relays.

According to the lawsuit, the ubiquity of Apple products and their link to the FindMy network means an AirTag can more reliably transmit location data than any competitor. 

“Indeed, in all metropolitan areas, and even many rural areas, one is never more than 100 yards away from an Apple device,” the filing says. “Thus, one is never more than 100 yards away from having location data transmitted back to Apple.” 

Each plaintiff in the case is a victim of stalking. One began to be stalked online in late August 2021 after the breakup of a three-year relationship, the case says. When the plaintiff ignored her stalker’s escalating behavior, eventually prompting the woman to move as she feared for her safety, she one day received a notification on her iPhone stating that “an unknown AirTag was traveling in her vicinity,” according to the complaint. 

The plaintiff searched her car and found the AirTag, placed by the stalker, in the rear passenger tire wheel well, the lawsuit states. The device was “colored with a sharpie marker and tied up in a plastic bag,” according to the suit.

Although the plaintiff moved, her stalker in March 2022 posted on social media a picture of a taco truck in the woman’s new neighborhood, with hashtags referencing the streets in the neighborhood and a winking emoji with the hashtag “#airt2.0,” the lawsuit states. 

“[The plaintiff] continues to fear for her safety—at minimum, her stalker has evidenced a commitment to continuing to use AirTags to track, harass, and threaten her, and continues to use AirTags to find her location,” the suit says. 

The second plaintiff, who filed the suit under Jane Doe, claims to have first encountered an unwanted AirTag amid a “contentious divorce” last summer. According to the case, the plaintiff’s former spouse “harass[ed] her, challenging her about where she went and when, particularly when she was with the couple’s child.” 

One day, the plaintiff found an AirTag in her child’s backpack, the complaint says. Although she attempted to disable the AirTag, “another one soon showed up in its place,” according to the complaint. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all persons in the United States who own iOS or Android devices and were tracked without consent by Apple’s AirTag or are at risk of being stalked. 

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