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by Matthew Winfree
The company Apple has been under attack recently after launching their device, the Airtag. While the intentions of the Airtag were positive, it has now had several reports of being used in cruel and harmful ways, including stalking.
This device is affecting many people across the globe, bringing with it several millions of complaints and stories of being stalked by Airtag. Living in a small town in Utah, most may not have any cases of this happening. It’s still affecting others outside of this rural area.
“A lot of good inventions, you know, they can be used to do harm. There are many reports already of people being creepy,” technology teacher Felipe Gonzalez said.
Even though there are hundreds of thousands that would agree, there are a few that see things from a different perspective.
When interviewed here at NS, several students felt Airtags and other tracking devices were helpful in many ways. Some of their reasoning included ideas like being able to find things when lost, letting parents know their location to keep them safe, and, in case of emergency, people are able to easily be found.
“I see usefulness to them, especially in places where there’s not a lot of safety,” Gonzales said. “But the stalking situations… [are] really really concerning.”
There have been many opinions seeing both the good and bad in Airtags, but thousands of people are still questioning what Apple is going to do to improve these systems.
Since Apple released the Airtag, they knew that it could be used in wrong ways such as stalking. They took a preventative measure and added a feature that causes a phone to beep and alert a person that they were potentially being followed by an Airtag that wasn’t theirs for more than 8 hours.
This is a good thing to have, but 8 hours is too long and still gives people so much time to see where others are going and what they’re doing. Apple hasn’t shortened it since then, but as of February 2022, they said an update would come later this year. Many people are hoping for the update seeing as how these issues are only getting worse.
“After a couple of hours away from one of your devices, it’s going to start to ring, alerting whoever has the Airtag, that they have one. So if someone puts one on you, that’s a way you can find out,” Gonzales said.
