Police records reviewed by Motherboard demonstrate that, (as predicted by security experts when the product was released) the device technology is used as a tool to monitor and harass women.
Motherboard has requested records listing the AirTag device for a period of eight months from dozens of major police departments across the country. Access files from eight police stations. Of the 150 total police reports that reported the AirTag, there were 50 cases of women calling police because they began receiving alerts from an AirTag that was not theirs. Of these, 25 were able to identify a man (ex-partner, husband, boss) who "planted" the AirTag device in their cars to follow and harass them.
These women reported that current and former close partners use the AirTag device to monitor them.
Many of the women who filed these complaints reported that they feared physical violence.
A woman called the police because a man against whom she had taken precautionary measures was harassing her with phone calls. She could get notifications from the AirTag that was watching her, but she could not find it.
When the police arrived, he answered one of the calls in front of the police and the man described what harm he would do to them.
Another woman found an AirTag in her car after a search, because she wondered how a man against whom she had taken precautionary measures could know exactly where she was.
Motherboard reports that the vast majority of reports came from women. Only one case out of 150 involved a man suspected of being watched by an ex-girlfriend with an AirTag.
