Apple Airtag: A Solution creating serious problems!

Sometimes in the hunt for finding solutions to simple problems, inventors/scientists/researchers end up creating a ‘solution’ that might appear to be cool at first but ends up creating dangerous new problems instead!

Take the Apple Airtag for example, it is supposed to help you keep track of your useful things/devices like backpack, keys, etc. So Apple created a tiny coin sized device named ‘Airtag’, that you can slap onto your precious possession, which you do not want to loose/misplace. According to Apple, Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see the exact location of your possession on a map. The whole process is anonymous and encrypted to protect your privacy.

Duh! My first reaction is pretty old school but nevertheless important: Learn to keep things where they belong in the first place! Remember most houses (atleast orderly ones) have a wooden peg for hanging the keys of your vehicles, a wooden bureau to keep mail/letters, desks where to keep your backpacks and so on.

As it turns out, creative folks who like to find ‘ different’ ways to use tech gadgets have found a way to use the Airtag to serve as a spying/stalking device. They simply slap on the Airtag on any person or device/vehicle and Voila, they can find out the location of this person/device/vehicle on the map and that too with a frighteningly sharp accuracy. Dangerous is’nt it? Besides the airtag is really small and thus can be hard to spot easily.

So understandably Apple folks come up with a ‘notification alert’ that alerts you if someone else’s Airtag is in close proximity to you and you can take steps to locate it or protect yourself. Great! But wait, the alert comes only 8 hours after a particular Airtag is away from its actual owner! So not really helpful, is it?

There have been many complaints, in the United States, especially from women who have claimed to have been followed/stalked with the help of an Airtag. I personally never bought the “Apple” hype but this Airtag thing has really crossed all lines in my opinion. One expects companies like Apple to really live upto the highest ethical standards and never ever promote products like the Airtag which are actually inviting criminals to use this technology to commit crimes! Are you listening Mr. Tim Apple?