Apple publishes new Personal Safety Guide following AirTag stalking concerns

There have been many reports recently about AirTags and the possibility of the item tracker's capabilities being abused by malicious users for stalking and stealing cars. Although it seems the AirTag's fail-safe systems have often prevented an incident of stalking or tracking, there have been concerns about them ever since they were released. Now, Apple has published a new document detailing how to keep your safety, reports AppleInsider.

Apple's new Personal Safety User Guide explains how to keep your personal data and yourself safe

Pretty much, the Personal Safety document details how you can protect your safety using AirTags, iPhones, and other Apple products. We know that Apple has been taking its privacy and security quite seriously and with this document, Cupertino is aiming to further educate its users on these matters.

The document is pretty much a resource for people who are concerned about or "experiencing technology-enabled abuse, stalking, or harassment".... which could be the case with people like the swimsuit model who reportedly got stalked around New York with an AirTag, an incident that we reported on earlier.

The guide can help you cut the digital ties you have with people you don't want to be connected to anymore. Additionally, it outlines the safety features that Apple products come with built-in. And the document is quite extensive, covering a large number of areas where people could have concerns, including instances where users may have given access to personal info to another person. The case where someone has access to the users' devices or accounts is also present in the guide.

What does the guide say about AirTags and Find My?

There is a section in Apple's newly-published Personal Safety Guide that looks into concerns for your digital security and location data-related apps and services, including Find My.

An earlier support document explains what to do if you find an unknown AirTag moving with you.

The guide also covers how to quickly use Emergency SOS mode (in applicable devices), and how to automatically tell a friend that you have arrived home safely if you're in an unsafe situation.

Apple states that the User Personal Safety guide will be updated on a regular basis, and it underlines the fact that the instructions listed in it apply to hardware running the latest versions of operating systems. This pretty much means macOS 12.1, iOS 15.2, and iPadOS 15.2 (there you go, another reason you might want to update to iOS 15 if you haven't done so already).

The curious thing is that this publication shows up following a quite significant number of reports talking about the AirTag's anti-stalking feature. Primarily, these reports have talked about users finding the little item tracker in their vehicles. But when you come to think of it, the notifications the Find My system gave users is why those item trackers were discovered in those vehicles in the first place, although many people look at those reports as concerning.

The possibility to use an item tracker for malicious purposes is not something new, and many of the other trackers available out there won't give you a notification that they are in your vicinity as the AirTag does, so keep that in mind.