(He would not give them up himself, saying, “I have a job,” but he agreed to unplug our Amazon Echo.) He also happens to be a professional press freedom advocate, so I was fairly certain he’d be game. My husband has lived on Bitcoin with me, been spied on by our “smart home,” and watched me give up the tech giants. I’ve been covering privacy for more than a decade, and have found that the best way to concretely explain the dystopian implications of new technologies is to immerse myself in them, guinea pig-style. It was not the first time I had subjected him to my brand of experimental reporting. Not wanting to break the law, or my husband’s trust, I had asked him for permission. Some states, including New York, where we live, have laws criminalizing this sort of thing. I decided to examine both claims by planting three AirTags, three Tiles, and a GPS tracker on my husband and his belongings to see how precisely they revealed his movements and which ones he discovered. All these people received warnings on their iPhones, a feature Apple had built into the AirTag system to help prevent unwanted tracking. A Sports Illustrated model, Brooks Nader, said she found one in her coat pocket after visiting a Manhattan bar. They were scared about being stalked or followed by someone wanting to steal their vehicles. Given the company’s history of introducing products - such as the original iPhone - that lead to mass adoption, AirTags could well lead consumers to location track everything all the time, so that nothing is ever lost again, ushering in a surveillance state with the cleanest of aesthetics.īut every new convenience comes with a price: In recent months, people have freaked out after finding AirTags hidden in their bags and on their cars.

It was for journalism.Īpple released chic, sleek AirTags early last year as a way to keep track of keys and purses.

I realize I sound like the worst wife ever, so let me explain. I put a quarter-sized Apple AirTag in a seat pocket a flat, credit card-shaped Bluetooth tracker made by Tile in a dashboard pocket and a hockey-puck-like GPS tracker from a company called LandAirSea in the glove compartment. Instead, I turned to the location-monitoring devices that I had secretly stashed in our car a week earlier.

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