Apple AirTags are helping cops catch thieves. Here's how you can protect yourself

Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies were led to two suspected mail thieves after a woman mailed herself an Apple AirTag.

By Karen GarciaStaff Writer

Aug. 26, 2024 3 AM PT

Need to find your lost bag? Trying to locate your neighborhood mail thief? Apple’s AirTag can help you with both.

Released in 2021, the $29 Apple AirTag was created to help users easily locate items through a Bluetooth signal. Some people are even using it to find their stolen property.

In a recent case, a woman in Santa Barbara County who was fed up with her mail being stolen from her post office box decided to bait the thieves and mailed herself a package containing an AirTag.

It worked.

Her mail, including the packaged AirTag, was stolen and she shared the tracking information with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies found the woman’s mail and the mail of more than a dozen other people; the suspected thieves were arrested.

This isn’t the first time the quarter-sized AirTags have been used to find stolen items. Santa Barbara County sheriff’s officials have noticed the trackers being used on commonly stolen items, such as e-bikes, wallets, purses, cars and electric scooters, said Raquel Zick, a spokesperson for the department.

How do AirTags work?

To use an AirTag, it needs to be registered with your Apple ID and paired with an iPhone, iPad or other product that has the “Find My” app. Apple’s iOS 17 operating system allows users to share their AirTag with up to five people.

It works by emitting a Bluetooth signal to a device in the Find My network, that signal goes to iCloud and the location of the tracker is then viewable on the map in the Find My app.

The AirTag itself does not connect to WiFi, however, you do need cellular data or WiFi to open and use the Find My app.

You also can locate an AirTag by using the Find My app to make it play a sound through its built-in speaker.

AirTags rotate their device’s identifying signal every 15 minutes when within range of their owner devices, but reduce the rate to once every 24 hours when out of range.

If the tracker is nearby, you can use “precision finding,” which shows you the exact distance and the direction of your AirTag.

Technically an AirTag can be detected anywhere an Apple device is and a signal can be sent to the iCloud.

The AirTag’s location is encrypted, and it doesn’t house any of the user’s data or information. Only its registered and paired user can see the AirTag location.

Another feature of the product is, if an AirTag that isn’t yours (and is separated from its owner) winds up in your bag or on your car, it will pick up the AirTag’s signal and alert you.

The Find My app will send you a notification that says “AirTag Detected Near You.” If you can’t immediately find the detected tracker after a while, it’ll start making a noise.

Android users don’t have the Find My app and therefore can’t receive these alerts. Apple created an app called Tracker Detect that allows an Android user to scan for any unknown AirTag or other tracking device nearby.

Other tracking devices on the market include Tile, Samsung SmartTag, Cube Shadow and Chipolo ONE Spot. Tile, Cube and Chipolo are alternatives that can be used by iPhones and Androids. Cube Shadow, a GPS tracker, requires a subscription to a data plan in order to report location, speed and history via cellular connection.

What are downsides to AirTags?

The tracking device has been used maliciously by stalkers wanting to track another person or another person’s property.

AirTags have been placed on people’s cars or luggage and used to trace their movements, according to a class-action lawsuit against Apple.

“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag,” Apple said in a 2022 statement.

Even though your iPhone, or other device that has the Find My app, is supposed to alert you when a foreign AirTag is placed on you in some way, the plaintiffs in this case argue that users still do not understand they are being tracked and the notifications come hours after the device is attached, according to the lawsuit.

Is law enforcement using AirTags to combat theft?

On the East Coast, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., has been using the product to curb package theft and as part of a pilot program to assist in tracking stolen property.

In January, Metropolitan’s Crime Suppression Team deployed two decoy packages, each containing AirTags on the steps of a private residence. A thief took the bait and placed both packages in a large bag and walked off. Officers tracked the AirTags and apprehended a man for theft.

Toward the end of last year, the department deployed a pilot program that gave free AirTags and Tiles, another type of tracking device, to people in specific police service areas so that car owners could track stolen vehicles and report the information to police.

“We also provided window decal stickers for vehicles equipped with the tracking devices, which could serve as a deterrent,” said Hannah Glasgow, a spokesperson for the department.

While it’s unclear whether any law enforcement agency in California routinely uses the tracking devices in their investigations, at least one agency recommends their use by civilians.

A team in San Francisco International Airport’s police division that specializes in baggage theft recommends that airport passengers use devices such as AirTags because they increase “the ability for the items to be recovered, along with the prosecution of the perpetrator(s),” SFGate reported.

Several reports have been made of Californians using AirTags to alert police about stolen property and recovering the goods in the last couple of years.

If you decide to use an AirTag to track stolen items

If you’re worried about an item being stolen and are considering putting an AirTag or other tracking device on it, don’t take matters into your own hands when the item is stolen, said Zick, the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s spokesperson.

When the theft occurs, she said, report the item stolen to law enforcement and allow them to recover the property and apprehend the thief.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department’s property crimes bureau said there are legal limitations to what it can do based on an AirTag signal alone and that the device does not provide enough probable cause for a search warrant, KCRA 3 reported. While AirTags can lead to recovery of stolen items, they might not always lead to an arrest unless police have additional evidence.