Despite anti-harassment measures, Apple’s AirTag now appears to be used by some to track young women. A Twitter user shared her dismay after discovering that she was being followed out of a bar.
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[EN VIDÉO] The ethics of the Internet of Things raises questions More and more, the Internet of Things is invading our daily lives. Connected objects make our life easier in the medical and domestic fields … but they transmit a mass of data and raise ethical questions.
Apple AirTag has been very controversial since its release. If the device is a very practical tool to no longer lose your wallet or keys, the firm seems oddly not to have anticipated the misuse. After the flight of cars, now some seem to use AirTags to track single women.
On December 18, a young woman from Maryland in the United States posted a series of tweets where she says someone put a bug on her car while she was in a bar. Leaving the facility at 2 a.m., she received alerts on her iPhone reporting an unknown AirTag following her. Having failed to flush out the intruder, she did not dare to return home. The device was found the next morning in the front wheel arch on the passenger side.
Insufficient protective measures
Since their launch, testimonials of this kind have multiplied. In September, the user @_ashleyscarlett had published a video on TikTok showing an AirTag discovered behind his license plate. In November, a woman in Jonesboro in Arkansas found an AirTag stuck on the trunk of his car.
Apple has implemented anti-harassment measures to prevent people who are being tracked by an AirTag unknown. However, this only works if you have an iPhone … The snitch does not need the person being tracked to be equipped with an iPhone. smartphone, since it can send its location using any iPhone that passes nearby. For mobile owners Android, the only way to know if you are being tracked is to install theapplication Tracker Detect recently published by Apple, then manually check for the presence of cookies in the area …
AirTags, a new weapon for car thieves
In Canada, authorities noted that several thefts of luxury cars had been carried out with the help of Apple’s AirTag “cookie”.
Article by Louis Neveu, published on December 12, 2021
Apple AirTags were intended to be a small anti-revolution loss and anti-theft but, since their release, a bad aura surrounds these small capsules. Futura had previously explained that confidentiality and security were not the strong point of AirTags and that Apple is not doing anything to fix this situation. It is now on the very use of these beacons that there is diversion. Instead of making it possible to find what has been lost or stolen, it has become a useful gadget for burglars and the thieves car.
In Canada, York Regional Police have indicated that, since September, the criminals conceal AirTags on the luxury vehicles which they target in order to steal them. The thefts have taken place in the past three months and five cars have been stolen this way. In these situations, the method was the same: the tracker was placed on the coupling or the hatch used to supply electricity to a trailer. Then, the thief (s) checked that the owner of the vehicle parked it at his home and outside to come and burglarize it.
An alert system in case of follow-up by an unknown AirTag
If criminals use AirTags, it is because the brand is very widespread in North America and the small beacons are indeed very easy to use with a device. iPhone. The “Find My” application allows you to follow AirTags more precisely and quickly, unlike other trackers Bluetooth market, with the exception of GPS chips autonomous.
The story does not tell how the Canadian police came to know that AirTags were used on these flights. In any case, to avoid this kind of disappointment, it is possible to know if an AirTag that does not belong to you, is following you. In any case, it is a function integrated into ios 14.5. It displays alerts if there are any. It also works with some Android mobiles.
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