Two women have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, alleging previous romantic partners used the company’s AirTag product and technology to track their whereabouts, putting their privacy and safety at risk.
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The proposed suit was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday on behalf of one woman from Texas and another in New York. They are seeking unspecified monetary damages.
One of the women alleges her ex-boyfriend placed an AirTag in the wheel well of a tire on her car. The second woman claims her ex-husband, who had been harassing her, placed an AirTag in her child’s backpack to trace her whereabouts.
“Ms. Doe 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 Plaintiff’s location,” the lawsuit claimed. “[She] seeks to bring this action anonymously due to the real risk that being identified would expose her to increased risk of harassment and/or physical harm.”
Apple launched the AirTag in 2021, a bluetooth locator that helps users find lost small items such as keys, wallets, laptops by giving them a digital footprint, ultimately enabling it to be found through GPS.
These incidents aren’t the first time AirTags have allegedly been used for unwanted tracking. A woman from Indiana used the product to track and murder her boyfriend over an alleged affair in June and there are other reports stating they’ve been used to assist in car thefts.
Apple added more safeguards to the product earlier this year to minimize unwanted tracking. In a blog post on its website, Apple said it has worked with law enforcement agencies and safety groups to find more ways to update its AirTag safety warnings.
“We’ve become aware that individuals can receive unwanted tracking alerts for benign reasons, such as when borrowing someone’s keys with an AirTag attached, or when traveling in a car with a family member’s AirPods left inside,” the company said in a statement at the time. “We also have seen reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes.”
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products,” the company said.
However, the new lawsuit claims those defenses haven’t done much to protect victims. “While Apple has built safeguards into the AirTag product, they are woefully inadequate, and do little, if anything, to promptly warn individuals if they are being tracked,” it said.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/tech/apple-airtag-lawsuit/index.html
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