What was meant to be a fun trip to Disney World for a family soon turned south after it was discovered they may have been tracked throughout the park via an unidentified Apple AirTag.
A family from Columbia, Tennessee spent a full day enjoying their time at Disney World. However, things quickly went dark after a family member’s iPhone notified them that an AirTag they didn’t own was tracking their movements.
A report from WKRN stated that it was Jennifer Gaston’s 17-year-old daughter Madison that received the notification. The notification arrived as the family was walking to their car.
Family Tracked by AirTag at Disney World
Jennifer stated that they received the notification at 11:33 P.M. However, the notification stated that the AirTag was first detected at 7:09 P.M. Clicking on the information provided access of an outline showing all the places the family walked over the past four hours.
Despite shaking all of their bags and clothing in the Disney parking lot, the family was unable to locate the AirTag. The Gaston family called the police as they returned to their hotel.
Members of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have stated that they are assisting local departments with similar investigations. TBI further stated that you should alert authorities should you find an AirTag on your person that does not belong to you. Serial numbers on the devices allow police to possibly track down the owner.
Meanwhile, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida stated that the deputy did not identify a criminal violation. This is because the family was unable to physically locate the AirTag. However, investigators filed an incident report and are aware of the situation.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department stated that due to the thousands of potential Apple products surrounding the park, the AirTag notification may be “erroneous.”
Further Problems
Apple’s AirTag has been the subject of controversy since its announcement. Many have argued that it enables abusive partners to stalk and harass victims. Back in early April, Motherboard provided a glimpse of the extent AirTags are capable of stalking others. Many have called for the outright ban of these types of devices.
While Apple does have measures in place to potentially safeguard victims, others do not. Unfortunately, these issues will most likely persist until major changes occur.
Nick:
This is a case in which Apple’s legal team need to be instilling, if not ‘the fear of God’, at least ‘the fear of adverse judgement’ in Apple senior leadership should one of these incidents result in plausible serious liability. It only takes one.
The other, near-equally unpleasant scenario, pending a sufficient accumulation of cases over time, is a class action suit from anyone who has been stalked. All the more reason to be seen as publicly plugging this vulnerability, or disabling that system until it can be fixed.
One assumes that legal are on top of this, and are confident in Apple’s current level of exposure relative to user vulnerability, however user safety must unambiguously come first.
Dr. Brooks, it is honestly amazing neither scenario has happened yet. It is unfortunate to wonder what it might take for companies to realize that there are large issues at hand with these devices.