According to a report by MacRumors yesterday, Apple is facing more than 30 lawsuits, all of which claim that the plaintiffs were tracked by AirTags.
According to reports, Apple is accused by all plaintiffs of releasing AirTag to the market knowing that it could be purchased and used by dangerous individuals for tracking, coercion, control, or other harm to innocent victims.
The lawsuit alleges that Apple did not establish adequate security measures when it released AirTag in 2021. The company received over 40,000 tracking reports between April 2021 and April 2024. Internal documents from the original lawsuit show that Apple knew the existing safeguards only served as a deterrent and could not prevent abuse by malicious actors.
Note: AirTag supports “Find” networks, which can send the location back to the AirTag owner via nearby Apple devices.
Apple has implemented several anti-tracking measures, including cross-platform notifications, to inform victims that unknown AirTags are tracking them. However, the plaintiff argues that Apple’s protection measures are still insufficient. The lawsuit points out that there is a 4 to 8-hour delay between when an AirTag begins tracking and when the user receives a notification, and that the initial version of AirTag only sent notifications to nearby victims after 72 hours.
Furthermore, the speaker on an AirTag can be removed. On e-commerce platforms like eBay, some sellers even directly sell modified silent AirTags, making tracking even harder to detect.
