iPhone users receive fake notifications saying they are being stalked
AirTags are designed to help consumers keep track of items
What is happening more and more is that iPhone users get such terrifying warnings even when they are not followed at all. The news says some of these alerts come in the middle of the night and scare those who receive the notifications. In most cases, the rogue AirTags are not in the path of the affected iPhone users at all and may be the result of a bug or malfunction.
Ryan McClain, a 25-year-old marketer in Indianapolis, received a report one morning last month that he was being followed. His reaction was a combination of bewilderment, fear and concern. “It was a shock to my morning,” he said. “I thought, who would want to stalk me? Who would want to hurt me?” McClain and his fiancé searched in vain for the offending AirTags the next day.
Apple must eradicate bugs that scare users by sending them false messages about being stalked
Toronto-based consumer researcher Marcus Geisler found the movement pattern generated by the AirTags strange. “The AirTag’s movement pattern on the map looked super weird,” Geisler said. “I thought my neighbor’s dog might have accidentally swallowed it”, He couldn’t find any rogue AirTags either.
So what should you do if you are bombarded with fake notifications? Should you turn off the notifications? Not all of them, says John DeCarlo, director of the criminal justice master’s program at the University of New Haven and former police chief in Branford, Conn. “Getting false alarms with technology is common,” DeCarlo said. “If you turn off the notifications, you don’t get any benefits.”
If the false alerts are from a bug, it’s up to Apple to try and eradicate them to prevent users from feeling like an unseen stalker is constantly watching them, even if it isn’t true at all.