by Sami Fathi
Apple is facing legal action in San Francisco federal court from two women, one of whom claims her ex-boyfriend used AirTag to track her without her consent, Bloomberg reports.
Since their release in April 2021, Apple's use of AirTags has raised concerns among privacy and law enforcement groups that trackers could be used for illegal tracking. Apple has put in place several security measures to protect against unwanted tracking, but according to the new lawsuit, those measures are “inadequate.”
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, alleges existing security measures, including alerting iPhone users if they are found to be followed by an unknown AirTag, “grossly inadequate and do little, if anything, to promptly alert people if they are being tracked.” Another woman in the lawsuit says her husband put an AirTag in her child's backpack to track her. The two women are seeking unspecified damages and accuse Apple of making an unsafe product.
The ex-boyfriend of one of the women who filed the lawsuit installed an AirTag in the wheel arch of her car and was able to figure out where she moved to avoid his persecution, according to a proposed class action complaint filed Monday in San Francisco federal court. Another woman said her ex-husband tracked her movements by putting an AirTag in her child's backpack.
Apple responded to concerns that AirTags may be used for unwanted tracking, including updates announced in February 2021 that included improved detection of unknown AirTags, louder AirTags alerts and more. “AirTag was designed to help people find their personal belongings, not track people or other people's property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products,” Apple said in a February 2021 press release. “Unwanted tracking has been a public issue for a long time, and we took this issue seriously when developing AirTag,” he continued.
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