NYTimes: I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move

NYTimes: I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move by Kashmir Hill (“A vast location-tracking network is being built around us so we don’t lose our keys: One couple’s adventures in the consumer tech surveillance state.”):

The app has an “InstaFence” feature that can alert me when the car moves, and a “Playback” option to show where the car has been, so I could see the exact route on windy roads my husband had taken. I saw that he parked at 4:55 p.m., so I wasn’t surprised when I got a text from him 12 minutes later reporting that they were in the waiting room.

The other trackers in the car — the $34.99 Tile and $29 AirTag — didn’t work as well in real time out in the sparsely populated area where we live. The AirTag, designed to find keys left behind “at the beach,” took an hour or so to reveal that the car was in the hospital parking lot. The Tile, intended to “find misplaced things nearby and far away,” never realized it had moved from our garage. That’s because these devices rely on Bluetooth technology.

Rather than communing with satellites circling the planet, they ping devices within 30 or so feet of them, such as the smartphone held by another person standing in line at the pharmacy. To help track down AirTags, Apple enlisted, per its own description, “hundreds of millions of iPhones, iPads and Mac devices all over the world.” That meant the AirTag’s effectiveness skyrocketed the day my husband traveled to New York City, because he was surrounded by people carrying iPhones.

Yes, the internet of things — our things — is coming alive around us, digitally frisking us as we walk by to see if we’re carrying anything of interest.

. . .

The critics were right: Apple’s safeguards against nefarious use weren’t foolproof.

Apple itself has realized the inadequacy of its safeguards and announced improvements this week, including making the devices louder and telling AirTag users that tracking someone without consent is a crime.

Remember Jones where placing GPS tracking devices is a trespass requiring a warrant for the government, but not individuals: snitches, errant police, untrusting confederates.

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