Apple AirTags reportedly being used to stalk women

Apple AirTags reportedly being ill-used to stubble women — what to do

An Apple AirTag partly inserted into a woman's wallet.

(Image credit: Steve Heap/Shutterstock)

More tales are surfacing online about the Orchard apple tree AirTag beingness accustomed track cars, or even stalk women, in nefarious shipway.

"Someone affianced an Apple AirTag to the underside of my battlefront wheel around good piece I was inside a bar," wrote Baltimore-surface area Chitter user @Sega__JEANAsis over the weekend in a tweetstorm that was widely forwarded.

The Twitter user, who besides uses the name Jaz W. online, said the secondary took place early Saturday morning (Dec. 18) and was "kinda terrifying." She said she started getting alerts on her iPhone as she drove chisel forth from the bar that an AirTag was set up self-propelling with her — even with no new cars on tour.

Aloha State friends. So something kinda terrific happened to me last night—someone involved an Apple AirTag to the bottom of my front wheel well piece I was inside a bar. (1/3)December 18, 2021

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"I checked all my things, similar my handbag, my trench pelage pockets, my pocketbook — couldn't find anything," @Sega__JEANAsis wrote. "While I was asleep I had soul more or less me bridle my car and they establish it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well."

"IT bothers Maine causal agency no matter how *safe* women try to be," she added, "it doesn't matter if someone truly wishes to harm you."

It wasn't clear if the person who put the AirTag on @Sega__JEANAsis's car knowing to follow her or her car. Recent reports have come from Toronto, Detroit and Houston of car thieves using AirTags to follow prospective vehicles from public places to locations where they can be more well taken.

@Sega__JEANAsis admitted that "they def could have simply wanted my car, it's slightly happening the higher end side but nothing infatuated."

"I like to think this is the reality instead of them physically wanting me for God knows what," she added.

Many more so much incidents

This isn't the only such incident to be reported in Holocene months. A Jonesboro, Arkansas, woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, found an AirTag taped her car's trunk after she shopped for a Christmas tree in November, according to TV station KAIT-TV.

California resident @_ashleyscarlett, identified aside InTheKnow as Ashley Estrada, said on TikTok Sept. 13 that she had plant an AirTag wedged behind her auto's numberplate presently after she drove from her home in the Inland Empire into Los Angeles.

In a follow-up video, Estrada mentioned that her car was a Dodge, and her clips seem to demonstrate a Dodge Battery charger, the same model that seems to be sought past Detroit-area machine thieves.

@_ashleyscarlett
Reply to @ann_baby7 ##greenscreen ##greenscreenvideo I will be contacting @apple with the air tags info but never in a million years did I think! 😭
♬ original righteous - ash 💕

Estrada said that when she reported the incident to police, they fired it as a "non-life-time-threatening situation" — no relief to Estrada, who called the incident "super scary." Estrada said she planned to contact Apple directly.

Another TikTok user, @kimbreezeh, said in a video posted Family line. 20 that when she told law that there seemed to be a rogue AirTag unseeable on her car, they also told her they could not take her report because nothing illegal was releas on.

@kimbreezeh
This is by all odds the scariest thing thats happened to me 🥴 ##fypシ ##fyp ##stalker ##airtag ##airtagsapple ##staysafeeveryone ##ThatCloseMessenger
♬ creative sound - Kimbrreezeh

"I'm to cry them when somebody shows in the lead," she said in her video. "That's when they can help me."

TikTok user @murasakisweetpotatoes had break luck with her local police department, accordant to a TV posted June 11. She overly found an AirTag under the permission plate of the car that she'd been driving, then wrote down the ordination number and according it to police.

@murasakisweetpotatoes
and for my natal day i take received One Stalker! but actually not funny pls be alive this can happen ##appleairtags ##stalker
♬ first sound - shelb

Apple can, theoretically, link that serial keep down to the gimmick's owner, so someone might be getting an uninvited hollo from the cops.

Again, most of these incidents could be interpreted as setups for car theft as well as affirmable still hunt. There's much less ambiguity with TikTok substance abuser @angel.edge95, who happening Nov. 21 posted a video locution that a rogue AirTag had followed her on a flight from Austin, Texas to Boston.

@angel.edge95
##greenscreen ⚠️share this with your loved ones ⚠️ ##ASOSChaoticToCalm ##traffickingawarenes ##airtag
♬ original sound - biker baddie ✨

She too went to local law, who base an AirTag taped to the inside of 1 of the bags she'd checked on the plane, @angel.edge95 said in a reexamination video.

It's not clear what has happened with the cases that the police bear taken seriously. We've reached outgoing to Apple with questions about how umteen incidents of possible AirTag stalking the company has received, and we will update this story when we receive a reply.

What to do if an AirTag is trailing you

If your iPhone tells you that an AirTag has been "found fast-flying with you," take the admonitory seriously. If you're drive, check the exterior of your car for places where an AirTag might be hidden — under the bumpers, inside the wheel wells, behind a license plate, fifty-fifty inside the gas-cap room access or trailer hitch attachment.

If you're non driving, then tick off your coat pockets and the bags you're carrying. AirTags are purported to outset chirping if they've been separated from their opposite iPhones for eight to 24 hours, but the chirps mightiness not make up audible from inside a moving vehicle Oregon if the AirTag is muffled by clothing.

There's a good deal of concern that Android users won't receive such notifications. Apple last week free an Android app called Device Tracker that does detect scalawag AirTags, only the catch is that scans must be initiated manually. If you're truly worried almost stalking, you might have to draw so much scans several times a day.

A better option might glucinium an Android app titled AirGuard, formed by researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. It automatically scans for AirTags and other Malus pumila Find My devices that seem to be moving with you.

We throne't vouch for the legitimacy of the AirGuard app, and it does ask for very much of permissions when you set up information technology, including precise GPS location, access to Bluetooth, full network access, and the abilities to incapacitate battery optimization and prevent an Android device from sleeping.

But AirGuard's source code is posted on GitHub for anyone to recap, and the same team of researchers feature developed other AirTag-related tools in the noncurrent several months.

If you do find the rogue AirTag in your clothing or material possession, operating theatre on your car, make not throw come out or destroy the AirTag. Instead, disable IT by removing the battery — push down on the AirTag's anterior, tress it counterclockwise and open leading the unit. Write down the AirTag's serial list and report the parenthetic to your topical anesthetic police department and Apple itself.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-catch driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting roughly in the info-security space for to a higher degree 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has bestowed negotiation at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown risen in stochastic Telly news spots and even moderated a dialog box discourse at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You can postdate his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.