Apple Doesn't Care If You Are Being Stalked

Apple: Wouldn't it be great if you could find something no matter where it got to?

Stalkers everywhere: Why yes it would, actually.

And so we have this. Apple AirTags stalking led to ruin and murders, lawsuit says | Ars Technica

This month, more than three dozen victims allegedly terrorized by stalkers using Apple AirTags have joined a class-action lawsuit filed in a California court last December against Apple. They alleged in an amended complaint that, partly due to Apple's negligence, AirTags have become "one of the most dangerous and frightening technologies employed by stalkers" because they can be easily, cheaply, and covertly used to determine "real-time location information to track victims."

Apple hasn't done enough to "mitigate harms," according to the lawsuit.

You can click thru for some of the experiences of people being stalked.

The real issue is that Apple doesn't give a damn because they are making money.

Both tech and domestic violence experts warned Apple ahead of the product release that AirTags could be used for unwanted stalking, but instead of making AirTags safer, the complaint alleged that Apple instead "dangerously rushed" AirTags "to market." Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a report quoted in the complaint, called AirTags "uniquely harmful" when they were first released.

"Apple automatically turned every iOS device into part of the network that AirTags use to report the location of an AirTag," Galperin said. "The network that Apple has access to is larger and more powerful than that used by the other trackers. It’s more powerful for tracking and more dangerous for stalking.”

I don't expect that the .gov will force Apple to do anything, not even pay a meaningful fine.