Grapevine Police are investigating a recent incident involving a woman finding an Apple AirTag on her vehicle.
“A woman who was driving her car got a notification on her iPhone that there was an Apple AirTag following her or with her,” Grapevine Police spokeswoman Amanda McNew told NBC 5 DFW. “She did the right thing, and she immediately called police to look at what was going on with that case.”
The incident happened on April 18 in Grapevine’s historic downtown area, where shops run along Main Street and GrapeFest is hosted.
This isn’t the first time criminals have used an Apple AirTag to follow or stalk their potential victims.
The Apple AirTag has been linked to over 150 cases of stalking and harassment, the overwhelming bulk of the cases involving women.
Apple introduced the AirTag in 2021.
According to McNew, people can check common places on their vehicles to see if there are devices.
“Look in the wheel wells of a car or the undercarriage or the bumper,” she said. “Just take a look underneath your car.”
iPhones have the capability to detect when there is an unknown device in the vicinity. If the cellphone user chooses, they can disable this option by going into their settings. But potential victims who don’t have an iPhone have no way of knowing whether they are being tracked by an AirTag.
On February 10, 2022, Apple released a statement about the unwanted tracking features.
“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,” the statement read.
“We’ve become aware that individuals can receive unwanted tracking alerts for benign reasons, such as when borrowing someone’s keys with an AirTag attached, or when traveling in a car with a family member’s AirPods left inside. We also have seen reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes,” the statement continued.
McNew said those who find an AirTag on their vehicles should notify the police immediately.
“If you see something like this happen, the best thing you can do is drive to a police station department,” she told NBC 5 DFW. “Go somewhere safe so you are not taking it home.”
The Dallas Express reached out to the Grapevine Police Department for additional information but did not receive a response at the time of this article’s publication.
The Dallas Express reached out to the Dallas Police Department for information regarding stalking within the City of Dallas and was told that “there ha[ve] been 13 stalking (family violence-related) cases YTD 2023” by Brian Martinez, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department.
There have also been eight non-family violence-related cases, bringing the total to 21 for 2023.
