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Surely Apple can use information from their Find My account to figure out who the AirTag was registered to. Even if the tag has been destroyed. That should be t
by ahepp 5y ago
Surely Apple can use information from their Find My account to figure out who the AirTag was registered to. Even if the tag has been destroyed. That should be trivially easy, right?
- olliej 5y agoNo, AirTags/the find my network are designed to make it impossible for apple to track anything about a device on the network. If you actually provide the AirTag to police, then they can get the serial number, from which they can get the associated account. Assuming that whomever put the AirTags their used their own actual account.
- somehowadev 5y agoI believe that's where the advice to hand an AirTag to the authorities come from? From here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212227 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212227
- topochico3 5y agoI’m not convinced this is a priority for police. Air tags seem to be a net negative for all.
- lukeschlather 5y agoI would attempt to file a restraining order against the owner of the tag, that would force the police to act.
- otterley 5y agoPlease don't discourage people from seeking assistance from law enforcement when their personal safety is at risk.
- gutitout 5y agoYou may not live in a large American city. It’s a bad place to rely on the cops in my experience.
- daenz 5y agoSo what is your suggestion, just let bad situations happen to you? Regardless of if the police actually do anything, it's important to have a paper trail of things so that you point to them if you ever have to end up in court.
- pstuart 5y agoNot the OP and not advocating to not go to the police, but I'd be shocked if they were of any use at all.
- otterley 5y agoI do, and this is an appropriate situation to call them about, regardless of your race. There are problems with the police, to be sure, but this is not a situation where someone is getting beaten up (or worse) over a traffic stop or misidentification during the commission of a crime.
- mschuster91 5y agoCops have been known to push stalking, domestic violence, rape and similar cases under the carpet or, even worse, abuse the contact information from the criminal complaint to stalk the victims themselves (see [1], [2] or whatever turns up at Google for "police officers stalking women"). Not to mention the organized denials of service that regularly crop up as "backlog of rape kits discovered" headlines. Women have all kinds of valid reasons to stay as far away from cops as they can, women of color, queer/nb/trans women even more. Some PDs have changed procedures and established special, often female-led, teams to deal with cases involving such sensitive scenarios... but they're not many to begin with. [1]: https://psmag.com/news/stalker-cop-police-protection-danger-crime-harassment-93995 https://psmag.com/news/stalker-cop-police-protection-danger-... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/20/my-friends-called-him-pc-perv-the-police-officers-who-prey-on-victims-for-sex https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/20/my-frie...
- topochico3 5y agoYou’re making a big assumption about me. I simply said I’m not convinced this is a priority for police. Prove me wrong!
- otterley 5y agoI’m not making an assumption about you. I am saying that that is how statements such as yours can be (and often are) interpreted.
- ctoth 5y agoA ... a net negative? Okay, like maybe I get that some people abuse this thing and maybe that's bad and maybe ten extra people got their car stolen this year or something although even that is questionable given that Tile already existed. But net negative? All the utility from all the people that found all the things they found this year with AirTags is counteracted, is wiped away by... what?
- topochico3 5y agoYou can always buy more stuff. Lowering the bar for stalking seems like a bad trade off, doesn’t it?
- jeidz 5y agoNot for the people who own stuff.
- ctoth 5y agoWell, I'm blind and I use an AirTag to find my cat. I would rather not just buy another cat. I get a lot of utility from knowing if he's inside or outside when I go to bed. This is one trivial example of millions of people every day using millions of AirTags to do small but useful things. That utility aggregates. Using your logic we should also ban cars because cars create the novel attack vector of being able to transport someone against their will discretely in the trunk, which clearly will increase kidnappings. After all, lowering the bar for kidnapping seems like a bad tradeoff, doesn't it?
- katbyte 5y agoThe bar is already really low. GPS trackers are just as cheap, more “real time”, and have no way for anyone to detect them unlike AirTags.
- daenz 5y agoAccording to the tweet thread: >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car and they found it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well. I wish he took pics before he threw it away If I found a tracking device on the car of someone close to me, I certainly wouldn't throw it away without showing them and insisting that they go to the police. Why would they just throw it away?
- KennyBlanken 5y agoBecause it never happened.
- daenz 5y agoI'm trying really hard not to come to this conclusion, but the tweet thread doesn't make any sense. >I didn’t wanna go home, so I spent the night somewhere and just said I’d figure it out in the morning. So they stayed somewhere and said they would figure it out in the morning. Ok, that's reasonable. >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car How did they tell someone to search the car while they were asleep? They said they would figure it out "in the morning" when they were awake. Some time between deciding to figure it out in the morning and waking up, they told someone to search their car? If it didn't happen, being asleep while someone searched your car would be the reason why they threw the device away without your permission. If you were awake when they threw it away, that would be a lot more difficult to believe.
- y4mi 5y agoits quite easy to imagine in my opinion. she drives home and gets these notifications, which clearly spook her, which is why she made extra turns etc. she sends a few messages to friends and/or family, because she's freaking out about it, but goes to sleep because she doesn't know what to do one of these friends or family comes by in the morning, sees her car and checks it out before ringing her door bell the given facts are quite believeable, though i doubt there is a human trafficing relation which she seems to think. its more likely a potential stalker, upset boyfriend or similar.
- tinus_hn 5y agoThe AirTag was conveniently discarded by an unnamed third party.
- tinus_hn 5y agoAirTags are registered to an Apple account, not a person. It’s not necessarily possible to trace it back.