Silencing AirTags Enables Stalkers and Domestic Violence ⇥ sixcolors.com

Glenn Fleishman, writing at Six Colors:

ElevationLab has released an AirTag product I find appalling, and I strongly urge they immediately withdraw it from sale and recall all inventory. The AirTag Silencer is a simple device: remove the back panel and battery from an AirTag, position the Silencer’s highly engineered pin over the speaker, tap the pin with a hammer, and the AirTag’s speaker is destroyed. This prevents it from emitting an alert in three circumstances, only one of which is triggered by an owner. The other two scenarios aid stalkers and perpetrators of domestic violence, among others. I will not link to it.

News stories of AirTags allegedly being used to facilitate stalking and harassment appear regularly: I found lawsuits or cases in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon, in the last two months alone. In the U.K., the Independent filed a freedom of information request of police in England and Wales and found the use of location trackers in stalking cases had risen from 57 in 2018 to 568 in 2024. Not all of those involve AirTags, but as a discreet and inexpensive option — remember what the FBI used in 2011? — it seems designed for abuse.

Why enable that predictable consequence?