Incidents of Women Being Stalked with Apple AirTags Are Piling Up Across the Country

According to police records, women across the United States are being stalked using Apple’s popular AirTag tracking devices.

Vice News reports that recently reviewed police records show that Apple’s popular AirTag tracking devices are being used to track women across the United States. Originally designed to help people track down their lost set of keys or backpacks, the small, affordable tracking discs have been used in a number of carjackings and robberies in recent months, now they’ve reportedly become popular tools to stalk women.

(The Associated Press)

Vice requested records mentioning AirTags in the past eight-month period from dozens of police departments across the United States. Of the 150 police reports received that mention AirTags, 50 included women calling the police as they were receiving notifications that they were being tracked by a nearby AirTag.

Of those 50 cases, 25 of the women were able to identify an individual in their life who they strongly suspected had planted the AirTags on them in an effort to stalk them. The women reported that current and former romantic partners were using AirTags to stalk and harass them.

In one of the cases, a woman called the police as a man who had been harassing her for some time was escalating his behavior and placed an AirTag in her car. The woman alleged that the man had previously threatened to “make her life hell.” The majority of cases involved angry exes, including one case in which a woman called to report that her ex had slashed her tires and left an AirTag in the car.

In another case, a woman claimed to have found multiple AirTags attached to her case on multiple occasions, and claimed she knew this was the actions of her ex who had a history of assault. She became sure it was him when he began showing up at her locations at the same time as her.