Apple Sued Over AirTags Allegedly Being Used By Stalkers

Two women have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple over its AirTag devices, which they claim allowed their ex partners to stalk them.

On Monday, the proposed class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It reportedly alleges that Apple did not put in place sufficient safety parameters that would keep stalkers from using the devices to keep track of victims.

“With a price point of just $29, it has become the weapon of choice of stalkers and abusers,” the lawsuit reportedly said.

The plaintiffs also reportedly allege that the devices were connected to murders of women in Indiana and Ohio this year. They also said AirTag is “the weapon of choice of stalkers and abusers.”

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AirTags are devices that allow people to keep track of their belongings that they may otherwise lose track of, such as wallets and keys.

One of the women in the lawsuit, Lauren Hughes of Travis County, Texas, said that she realized she was being tracked by an AirTag in August of last year. A three-month relationship had ended between her and her ex-partner, and the person began to write abusive messages on her social media pages, as well as leave threats on her voicemail.

She ended up moving after the person put objects outside of her apartment, but she realized while she was living at a hotel that she was being stalked. Her phone notified her that an unfamiliar AirTag was moving with her — which she discovered hidden in her car’s wheel well.

The second woman involved in the suit resides in New York and discovered an AirTag in her kid’s backpack over the summer. She found the device following a “contentious divorce.” The lawsuit claims that the woman’s stalker had “a commitment to continuing to use AirTags to track, harass, and threaten her.”

The class action filing is looking to win an undefined amount of damages for those who own Android or iOS devices who have been monitored with an AirTag or who are at risk of being victims of stalking.

The BBC reported in January that multiple women had said they were tracked with AirTag devices.

“If you create an item which is useful for tracking stolen items, then you have also created a perfect tool for stalking,” Eva Galperin, Director of Cyber-Security at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the outlet at the time.

“I have personally talked to several people who have found AirTags in their possession,” she said.

When it launched the AirTags, Apple made the claim that “AirTags are designed to track items not people.”