The thieves plant an airtag in the body of the vehicle and arrive at the victims’ parking lot at night to steal the vehicle.
Photo: York Police Department
In the short time that has passed since Apple launched the AirTags, its tiny and fairly accessible tracking tags, they produce quite a few interesting headlines and stories: from a lawyer who helped the homeless, through a scooter rider who managed to find his stolen tool. But now it seems that we are for the first time also exposed to the unpleasant sides of cheap surveillance technology used by thieves.
At $ 29 – the thieves know where you parked the car
Photo: Giktiim
AirTags are pretty tiny search tags that you can attach to keys, wallet, bags and pretty much anything you want, and use your iPhone to locate them. If the tag is next to you, you can use Ultra Wideband technology to find the lost in a kind of “hot-cold” game. But if you’re really lost something, the tags know how to transmit anonymous Bluetooth signals, which are picked up by other iPhones, and update the tag’s location on the map – without them even knowing they’re doing it.
According to a statement from the York County Police Department in Canada, since September 2021, police officers have been investigating 5 different cases in which suspects implanted AirTag in luxury vehicles while they were parked in public parking lots. Among other things, the thieves clear the search tags, which cost $ 29 per unit, in the compartment that protects the fuel tank, and in the towing hook area. Once the vehicle arrives at the victim’s home, the thieves simply arrive in the middle of the night at his home parking lot and steal the vehicle by connecting to the diagnostics port and resetting the vehicle systems so he gets the key the thieves have – and they can simply drive with the vehicle within minutes.
Photo: York Police Department
Police report that in 2021 more than 2,000 vehicles were stolen in its territory and only 350 vehicles were returned to their owners, but police choose to warn of the phenomenon publicly, and it is likely that although only 5 verified cases have been discovered so far, there are many more cases of AirTags Were exposed, whether for the purpose of stealing cars or tracking down certain factors. In a video released by the police, a detective in the car theft department claims that he foresees many more cases in the future.
Apple is already aware in advance of the problematic nature of AirTags
AirTags are an unconventional product for Apple, and not just because of their price. Apple is a company that has turned privacy into a kind of flagship feature in its products, which may conflict with the usability of AirTags, as we see in the case of York Police. So Apple has some interesting defense mechanisms.
In case someone plants an Airtag that does not belong to you, he will start beeping after 8-24 hours from the moment he is separated from the iPhone to which he is associated. In addition, if you use an iPhone, you should be notified that there is an Airtag that does not belong to you, and may be used for your location by another party. Assuming the thieves place their airtag in your vehicle during the day, they still have a few hours of security where you will not even know there is an airtag that has hit you. Just recently Apple released an interesting addition to the beta of iOS 15.2 in which you can actively check if there are AirTags that do not belong to you near you at the click of a button.
So far Apple has not released the app that will also allow Android users to make sure they are not under surveillance of one of its cheapest and most accessible products, and the right to make sure no one is spying on you is currently reserved only for iOS users. It is likely that as time goes on, we will not only hear about exciting and positive stories about AirTags, but about other creative uses by slightly less sympathetic factors.
And this is what we thought of the AirTags when they were just launched
A good old age
Born with a joystick in hand. He has far too many gadgets and far too little free time to play with them all. An unexplained hammer holder for calibrating device batteries. When he’s not busy writing about technology, he likes to talk about it, and a lot
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