Angelina was driving her four-year-old daughter to a birthday party when she received an ominous notification on her phone, alerting her to an unknown device that had been tracking her every move.
Like any other Saturday, the 29 year old had been running errands with her two young daughters, from sports practice to food shopping. Her heart began racing when she saw her iPhone populate a map of her exact whereabouts from the last 13 hours. She felt 'targeted' and 'disgusted' that her family had been put at risk.
The map revealed that an Apple AirTag was following Angelina; a coin-sized, Bluetooth enabled device that's easily attached to wallets, bags or keys, to help people track their own valuables. Two years on from its launch, Apple's £35 smart tracker has skyrocketed in popularity despite being mired in controversy, as safety experts have branded it a 'gift to stalkers'.
The small, wireless discs use Bluetooth technology to ping nearby Apple devices, which then report the last known location of the AirTag to other devices registered to it. Whoever was monitoring Angelina's whereabouts in February might now know where she lives and where her children had been that day.
Angelina, who only shared her first name to protect her safety, could tell from the map's location points that the AirTag was in her car. She used Apple's safety tool in the Find My app to force the AirTag to make a pinging sound, and after multiple attempts, finally found the tiny disc carefully taped to one of her tyre wells.
The calculated technique used to plant the device made Angelina, from Chicago, USA, even more frightened. "They went to great lengths to do it neatly; wiping off the metal on the tyre well, taping it with electrical tape and then duct tape. It freaked me out even more," she told The Mirror.
She continued: "I was very shocked. It made me just feel so disgusted. I'm always taking my daughter to her sports practices. Did someone see me with my four-year-old trying to run errands? Did they see me struggling to put groceries in the car with a very active little one? I felt targeted."
Angelina is one of many women turning to social media to share their AirTag experience. TikTok has been flooded with reports of women finding them hidden in cars, handbags, coat pockets or even children's backpacks. Chillingly, experts say Apple's devices are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tech-enabled stalking.
Not only are AirTags being used maliciously by criminals to stalk victims, they are also exploited in the context of abusive relationships, where perpetrators either overtly or covertly track a person's every move, entrenching a sense of fear, isolation and control.
Apple addressed concerns last year by improving its safety features, which included making the AirTag alert louder, in a bid to help people find suspicious devices more easily. It remains uncertain whether the improved sound alerts have merely heightened the AirTag's tone style or actually play at a volume louder than the original 60 decibel sound.
The tech giant also reduced the timeframe in which people will be alerted to an unknown AirTag. Before February 2022, the device took anywhere between eight and 24 hours to send out alerts, giving stalkers ample time to track a victim's whereabouts. However, Apple has failed to confirm how quickly these alerts will now appear.
Security experts welcome the new features, but warn they don't go far enough, as Android users aren't protected by Apple's integrated alert systems, and instead have to manually scan for unwanted AirTags using a separate Tracker Detect app.
Specialists warn this is a troubling oversight, as it relies on Android users having the suspicion they are being tracked in the first place.
It's not just Apple in hot water from critics, either. Competitor brand Tile had its own version of trackers on the market years before the AirTag launched, but only introduced safety features in March 2022, a month after Apple announced theirs.
Commenting on these reactionary design changes, Charlotte Hooper, helpline manager at The Cyber Helpline, says: "You wouldn't allow a car to come to mass-market without having vigorous testing, so why are we allowing smart tech to just be released and then fixing safety features later?"
Privacy pros have also raised concerns about modified 'silent' AirTags being listed on Ebay and other websites, where the safety features have been stripped out.
Angelina points out that AirTag owners can activate tracking at any time, meaning the device could have been planted in her car long before she got alerted.
"It makes me wonder about the women who don't have iPhones. What if I had an Android and I never got this notification? What if someone tried to kidnap my kid, or someone carjacked me?" she says.
A spokeswoman at Apple said: "Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag. It's why the Find My network is built with privacy in mind, uses end-to-end encryption, and why we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking.
"We hope this starts an industry trend for others to also provide these sorts of proactive warnings in their products."
Reports of AirTag mis-use have so far been most prolific in America, where two women who alleged to have been stalked and harassed by AirTags are currently suing Apple. A Vice investigation in April 2022 found 150 police reports, from eight US police departments, mentioning AirTags.
Charities in the UK are reporting a concerning rise in AirTag stalking too. According to the CPS, there are at least a dozen stalking cases involving devices like AirTags annually. These numbers are unlikely to reflect the scale of the problem, however, given 95 percent of stalking cases don't make it to court.
In August 2022, Christopher Trotman, from Townhill, Swansea, was sentenced to nine weeks in prison for stalking his ex-partner with an AirTag.
Trotman planted the Bluetooth tracker on his ex-partner's car. When she received a notification on her iPhone that an unknown device was nearby, she ignored it, having no idea what it meant.
It was only when her daughter also started getting the same notifications that she realised she was being stalked. The AirTag was super-glued to the rear bumper of her vehicle.
Angelina experienced a similar problem with the AirTag alert she received. Her whole family share an iCloud account, and as her daughter has a pair of AirPods, Angelina and her husband get notified each time their daughter gets in the car using her earphones. The alert looks near-identical to the notification she received about the suspicious AirTag, so it could have easily been missed.
Tallulah Belassie-Page, a campaigns and policy officer from stalking charity Suzy Lampaugh Trust, says that these cases are worryingly common. One woman, who remains anonymous, turned to the charity for help when her ex partner planted an AirTag on the underside of her car.
The perpetrator had been harassing her with texts and calls in the eight years since their relationship ended, and would drive by her home almost every day. She began to notice her stalker appearing in cafes and shops close by to her home, and in November last year, received texts from him commenting on her new car.
It was only when her son discovered the AirTag in her vehicle by chance that she found the phone notifications warning the device was nearby. By then, it had tracked her movements for three consecutive days, including to her gym, her place of work and her new partner's home.
The perpetrator was arrested in relation to stalking and the police investigation is ongoing, but the woman remains fearful for the safety of her and her son, and is terrified her ex partner will break into her home to harm them.
Tallulah explains: "AirTags are unique in that they can be used by strangers, ex or current partners, or indeed any other acquaintance. Whereas more sophisticated types of tech, like video doorbells or smart speakers, might only be used within the context of an ex intimate partner relationship because they'd had access to those devices."
While AirTags don't necessarily make it easier for stalkers and abusers to track their victims, experts say the commercialisation of such devices, combined with the reputation of brands like Apple, makes their mis-use more normalised.
Charlotte from The Cyber Helpline says the normalisation of Bluetooth trackers could have wider implications, as perpetrators may be using AirTags or similar devices to monitor victims simply because they already have them to hand.
Meanwhile, Dr Lisa Sugiura, a reader in Cybercrime and Gender at the University of Portsmouth, added: "The validity of the Apple brand may legitimise the abuse and perpetrators may justify their stalking behaviours as they are 'not doing anything wrong', as this is what the product is 'designed to do'."
Charities have also long been sounding the alarm that police aren't taking tech abuse seriously enough, and are calling for better training and resources so officers are more equipped to spot signs, ask the right questions, and recognise the serious danger in mis-using devices like AirTags.
Last year, the Suzy Lampaugh Trust lodged a super complaint against the police, citing systemic issues in response to stalking across England and Wales. Filed on the behalf of the National Stalking Consortium, the charity collated evidence of 'deep-rooted' police failures that 'put the lives of victims at risk'.
It points out that just 5 percent of reports of stalking to the police made in the year to March 2022 resulted in a charge by the CPS. According to ONS data, 1.8 million people between April 2021 and March 2022 were impacted by stalking in England and Wales. Reports of stalking have also been steadily rising over the past decade.
Tech abuse is a tool for coercive control, a type of emotional abuse where perpetrators manipulate, humiliate and control a victim. Despite the startling rise in cases cited by domestic abuse charities, particularly during Covid lockdowns, conviction rates remain low. There were 41,309 offences of coercive control recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022, with only 750 prosecutions.
Dr Charlotte Proudman, an award-winning barrister specialising in violence against women, told The Mirror: "It is important to remember that AirTag stalking is not just a technological problem, but a societal one. The normalisation of controlling and coercive behaviour in relationships is the root cause of this issue."
Kimberly Scroop, from California, says the police refused to take a report when she alerted them to an AirTag tracking her location. She claims officers even went as far to say that nothing illegal had occurred, despite stalking being a crime in the state of Arizona, where she tried to report the incident.
The 30-year-old was driving home late one night when she got the notification that an unknown AirTag was in her vicinity. The map showed the device had been monitoring her for over six hours, and since she'd just moved to a new state, she had no idea who could be following her.
She rifled through her bags, pulled parts off her car and even searched in her shoes, to no avail. Unlike Angelina, Kimberly didn't hear the AirTag ping to alert her of its whereabouts, a common complaint from victims who say the chime isn't loud enough, or sometimes non-existent.
She told The Mirror: "I was freaking out and stayed up all night, it was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I felt like my life was in danger, as well as my family. That was the worst part."
Kimberly went to the police station the next morning to report the device, hoping whoever might be tracking her could see that she was going straight to the authorities. When she showed the officers the screenshots of the map tracking her location, they had 'no idea what an AirTag was'.
"They essentially told me, 'We don't know what the technology is, and if you don't know who it is, what do you expect us to do?' but I thought that was their job," she says.
"I explained again, and they wouldn't even let me go past the front desk. They wouldn't write my name down. Nothing."
Devastated by the lack of help, Kimberly added: "I went outside and I called my mum and just sobbed. All I was asking them to do was just write something down, so if something happens to me, there's a record of it. They refused."
Emma Pickering, senior operations tech abuse manager from domestic abuse charity Refuge, says this is a common response from police forces in the UK too. "Victim survivors are often brushed aside and made to feel like what they are explaining is far-fetched or impossible," she explained. "The police immediately disregard and disbelieve victims, and that then creates a barrier for further reporting of abuse."
Kimberly finally came across someone who knew what an AirTag was when she visited a local mechanic, who agreed to scan her car with a magnet detector, having done the same for other people looking for an ominous AirTag. They couldn't locate the tiny device, and Kimberly never found it, leaving her even more anxious.
She said: "I left the state for the weekend, hoping to distance myself from it. I was really worried. A couple months later I actually ended up getting a new car. I just didn't want to deal with it. I switched gyms, the whole nine."
Eventually the tracking notification stopped, but Kimberly changed her whole routine after the incident; switching up the time she went to the gym each day, driving different routes to work, and visiting different coffee shops. She lived in a small town, so felt helpless.
Back in Chicago, the police did take a report of Angelina's case, but she says officers were also unsure what an AirTag was, and didn't know what to file the crime as.
Despite her managing to find the device, as well as the AirTag's serial number and partial phone number the device was registered to, Angelina says the cops told her there wasn't much they could do, but said a detective would follow up. She hasn't heard from them since.
Tech abuse was rife long before Bluetooth trackers entered the mass market, and experts say AirTags are simply the latest device in a stalker's arsenal. As the smart tech sphere grows and legislation around privacy and women's safety fails to catch up, technology provides fertile ground for abusers and stalkers to prey on their victims.
Emma from Refuge says that perpetrators often use multiple forms of tech to abuse their victims. "In some cases we've found perpetrators using their neighbours, families and friends' devices to track victims," she says.
"They claim to be helpful and offer to set up other people's tech, with the aim to use that to monitor their partner. They then have the whole street monitored, as well as all the devices in the home, and personal devices, including their children's phones, tablets and games consoles."
This collection of smart tech is known as the Internet of Things, a term coined in 1999 by computer scientist Kevin Ashton, denoting a group of objects that connect to the internet and link up to each other, from smart speakers to video doorbells and smart TVs.
Charlotte from The Cyber Helpline also tells The Mirror that tech abuse goes far beyond AirTags: "We're seeing everything being used, right down to smart kettles, where a stalker will turn it on, just to tell their victim that they're there. Some perpetrators will turn up the smart thermostat in the home, so the victim has higher bills to pay."
Both experts point out that features native to smart phones remain the most common stalking tool, including the Find My app.
Stressing the correlation between online and tech abuse, physical abuse and domestic homicide, Dr Lisa adds: "The harms from tech abuse are no less serious than those arising from other forms of coercive and controlling behaviours and physical forms of violence."
Experts are calling for tighter legal requirements for tech companies designing smart technologies, in order to prioritise public safety at the point of development. They say brands like Apple and Tile urgently need to work with stalking and domestic abuse agencies, to spot any potential pitfalls ahead of launch.
Safety specialists, lawyers and charities also stress that tech abuse is a symptom of the permeance of violence against women in society, not the cause.
As the surge in smart tech plunges us into a world of the unknown, on-the-pulse legislation that prioritises privacy and safety is vital. Until we treat tech-enabled stalking with the urgency it requires, victims' lives will remain at risk.
If you are experiencing tech abuse or have concerns for a friend or family member, visit Refuge's tech safety website for more advice. If you need urgent help, contact Refuge's helpline on 0808 2000 247.
