Apple's AirTags Catch a Moving Van Driver Lying About His Location (msn.com) 116
Moving halfway across America, from Colorado to New York, Austin and Valerie McNulty had a bad experience after hiring a moving company that subcontracted the work to another moving company.
But they'd also included an Apple AirTag in one of their boxes, Newsweek reports: A moving guy reportedly told Austin that he "just picked up the stuff" and would take another day or two. Due to the AirTag, the couple knew the moving guy was not in Colorado but was just less than five hours away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As for the family's possessions, which were supposed to be inventoried and in a safe location, GPS tracking showed that neither action allegedly occurred. "It turns out [the items] just stayed overnight in a sketchy part of New Jersey," Austin told Newsweek.
According to Austin, that same driver who allegedly lied about his whereabouts told Austin in a phone call that he went to see "his lady" and that was part of the delay....
"I think we would have been waiting a lot longer for our home goods to arrive [if we didn't have the AirTag]," Valerie said.... "I would say that AirTags are fairly inexpensive and it's an easy way to hold the third parties accountable."
"When we brought up the fact that we knew his exact location he hung up on us," Valerie McNulty said in a Facebook post (which has been shared more than 4,600 times) — although the driver did eventually call back a few minutes later and the items were delivered the next day.
ABC News reports that the driver "was put on probation" according to his moving company — which also added that it "plans to use AirTags for tracking their drivers in the future."
Valerie McNulty argued to ABC News that "I was never tracking the driver, that was never my intention. I was tracking my belongings." Yet the Washington Post notes the story "comes amid a robust debate about the small plastic-and-metal disks, which launched last spring: Are they creepy or helpful? The trackers have been found on expensive cars, presumably so they could be stolen. But they can also be attached to commonly lost valuables, like keys, to make finding them easier."
Apple Insider reports a Pennsylvania state legislator is even proposing legislation making it a crime to track someone else's location or belongings without their consent, adding that if passed in Pennsylvania the law would "create a precedent for other states to follow suit if passed."
ZDNet quotes a remark from the Director of Cyber-Security at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the BBC, calling Apple's AirTags "a perfect tool for stalking." But ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk adds "That's the problem with technology, isn't it? For every potential good use, there are at least several pain-inducing, criminal-pleasing, world-ending uses. Too often, the bad outweighs the good, especially in the public eyes and ears. Here, though, is a tale of a woman who's glad she used an AirTag for her own surveillance purposes....
This whole tale makes me wonder, though, what we've come to and where we're going.... If our default is that we can trust no one and fear everyone, how can we ever really get along?
But they'd also included an Apple AirTag in one of their boxes, Newsweek reports: A moving guy reportedly told Austin that he "just picked up the stuff" and would take another day or two. Due to the AirTag, the couple knew the moving guy was not in Colorado but was just less than five hours away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As for the family's possessions, which were supposed to be inventoried and in a safe location, GPS tracking showed that neither action allegedly occurred. "It turns out [the items] just stayed overnight in a sketchy part of New Jersey," Austin told Newsweek.
According to Austin, that same driver who allegedly lied about his whereabouts told Austin in a phone call that he went to see "his lady" and that was part of the delay....
"I think we would have been waiting a lot longer for our home goods to arrive [if we didn't have the AirTag]," Valerie said.... "I would say that AirTags are fairly inexpensive and it's an easy way to hold the third parties accountable."
"When we brought up the fact that we knew his exact location he hung up on us," Valerie McNulty said in a Facebook post (which has been shared more than 4,600 times) — although the driver did eventually call back a few minutes later and the items were delivered the next day.
ABC News reports that the driver "was put on probation" according to his moving company — which also added that it "plans to use AirTags for tracking their drivers in the future."
Valerie McNulty argued to ABC News that "I was never tracking the driver, that was never my intention. I was tracking my belongings." Yet the Washington Post notes the story "comes amid a robust debate about the small plastic-and-metal disks, which launched last spring: Are they creepy or helpful? The trackers have been found on expensive cars, presumably so they could be stolen. But they can also be attached to commonly lost valuables, like keys, to make finding them easier."
Apple Insider reports a Pennsylvania state legislator is even proposing legislation making it a crime to track someone else's location or belongings without their consent, adding that if passed in Pennsylvania the law would "create a precedent for other states to follow suit if passed."
ZDNet quotes a remark from the Director of Cyber-Security at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the BBC, calling Apple's AirTags "a perfect tool for stalking." But ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk adds "That's the problem with technology, isn't it? For every potential good use, there are at least several pain-inducing, criminal-pleasing, world-ending uses. Too often, the bad outweighs the good, especially in the public eyes and ears. Here, though, is a tale of a woman who's glad she used an AirTag for her own surveillance purposes....
This whole tale makes me wonder, though, what we've come to and where we're going.... If our default is that we can trust no one and fear everyone, how can we ever really get along?
Not a bad use of the tech (Score:5, Interesting)
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It didn't occur to you that your children might lose their backpacks? When he was between that age and 10, my nephew was always losing stuff, bags, coats, pencil cases, you name it, he could lose it. AirTags would have been immensely useful.
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What is the range of the Apple abuse detection system, the one that informs Apple users that an Airtag is mirroring their movements? If such a tag is picked up by _all the other children's Iphones_ in that school or who share classes with your child, it could cause a great deal of confusion.
Re:Not a bad use of the tech (Score:5, Interesting)
This is probably illegal in parts of Europe, especially Germany. Privacy is a human right and even employers are not allowed to monitor their employees too closely.
If they had been clear and up front about the existence of the AirTag and the fact that they would be monitoring it, that might have been enough. Otherwise the driver would probably have a civil legal complaint.
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They might not be allowed to monitor employees, but there are plenty of company cars with GPS trackers. Tracking the _company owned car_ would not qualify as a privacy issue. ...).
Now, if the car is actually owned by the subcontractor, it's a different situation. But even then, you could have situations where the company actually needs to know where the driver is (taxi,
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Even with vehicles that have tracking, there must be limits. For example, only tracking during work hours. They might be able to go further an look at data outside those hours if they have a reasonable suspicion of the vehicle being abused, but they must always tell the employee that the tracker is there.
Re:Not a bad use of the tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Even with vehicles that have tracking, there must be limits. For example, only tracking during work hours. They might be able to go further an look at data outside those hours if they have a reasonable suspicion of the vehicle being abused, but they must always tell the employee that the tracker is there.
I suspect expectations around this will evolve into "if you're carrying or transporting stuff that belongs to others, assume you're being tracked by those others". After all, most of us now pay to be unwillingly tracked (to varying degrees of precision) because we carry cell phones. Given that, I don't think folks will stand for legislation that prevents them from tracking their own stuff while they're paying others to handle and move it.
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Such tracking requires freely given, opt-in consent. That's why websites always have to ask before they track users in the EU - the dreaded cookie consent banner.
Re:Not a bad use of the tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Such tracking requires freely given, opt-in consent. That's why websites always have to ask before they track users in the EU - the dreaded cookie consent banner.
At least sometimes, legislation adapts to societal norms and expectations. The EU legislation might change if enough people want to use Air Tags to track their stuff without getting prior consent from everyone who might transport it. For example, if I get into a taxi or a bus and I have my keys Air Tagged, do I need consent from the driver and fellow passengers? If I lose something that's Air Tagged, and someone finds it and transports it - anywhere - am I then on the hook legally speaking for not having gotten their "opt-in consent"? The devil is in the details.
Regarding your 'cookies' analogy, I have another question: if I were to purchase a cell phone in the EU would I be specifically and unambiguously warned that my movements will be tracked, and would I have to give signed consent? If not, then there's a serious disconnect. If such a process is the norm, then bravo EU!
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It depends on how you use the tags. If you put the tag in there specifically to track the taxi, it's a problem. If you put it in your bag and only use it when you have lost your bag, it's probably fine.
Re: Not a bad use of the tech (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but if my stuff is going with you after working hours, I have the right to know where you're bringing my stuff. I couldn't care less where the driver is. If the driver wanted to park the truck and then go somewhere else, I don't care, but if they're bringing my possessions with them, I don't see how I'm violating human rights by knowing where that stuff is.
If you work for a company in Europe, and you decide to use a tracked company car for personal use, they really aren't allowed to track the location of their vehicle? You could take the vehicle anywhere, put arbitrary amounts of wear and tear on it during off-work, and they can't look at tracking and see that you've driven is across Germany over a weekend?
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In Europe, if you are allowed to use the vehicle per personal journeys then yes, tracking you during those non-work hours is not allowed.
That's the deal with company provided vehicles for personal use. They can put limits on your use of it, e.g. maximum yearly mileage or not taking it out of the country.
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Sorry, but if my stuff is going with you after working hours, I have the right to know where you're bringing my stuff. I couldn't care less where the driver is. If the driver wanted to park the truck and then go somewhere else, I don't care, but if they're bringing my possessions with them, I don't see how I'm violating human rights by knowing where that stuff is.
This is the biggest and only real problem.
People incorrectly describing it as tracking the driver or truck, when that isn't actually happening.
If it *was* true that the driver is tracked, they would know where the driver is.
Yet there is no physical way to determine from the airtag in the cargo, where the driver is actually at.
The company contractually obligated themselves by stating as legal fact that the cargo would remain securely in the van.
In reality, that's not a fact, it is an assumption that they ful
Less than ideal (Score:3)
The personal protection features seem designed to reduce its usefulness for the some of the most useful cases, namely personal bags or children, where the most likely thieves or kidnappers are adults with iPhones or iPads that will alert them to the tags' presence.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
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It doesn't warn you for a while though. I read 24 hours somewhere, which is far too long. By the time it tells you that you are being stalked the stalker likely already has your home address and places you frequent like work.
At least on Android there are 3rd party apps you can use to detect AirTags quickly, rather than having to wait.
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Is the API published? I'd expect apps in the Apple store quite quickly if there are, though I'd also expect Apple to hinder their publication as much as possible. There are already some fascinating notes published about the tool, such as the proximity reports hidden in the "FindMyApp" menu.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com]
Tagging my own property is always legit (Score:4, Interesting)
We need to codify the concept more clearly. Meanwhile: trucking companies could add the option of an AppleTag as a feature to their service.
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The moving company used a sub-contractor (which might have used its - possibly personal - truck).
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GPS does not track detailed movement well, the precision is too low.
How "detailed" are you looking for? Strava - the exercise tracking tool - will place me on my front porch before I start running or riding and follow me within a foot or two for the entire activity.
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There's just no way to prevent abuse of AirTags. It would be nice if phones could scan and report them more often than iPhones do, but that relies on the victim having a phone with that feature.
We need some strong regulation. I'd suggest only allowing users to see tags that their own phone can detect. For tags out of range, they would have to report a theft to the police and get an incident number before Apple released information about the location.
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The problem is airtags are used by people who made be in close proximity to you only by coincidence, so it takes a while to determine which is a stalker's tag planted on an unsuspecting victim and which are coincidental.
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They are a privacy nightmare.
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I doubt it would be a viable product with such a regulation. Perhaps that is what you are going for, but it doesn't seem likely to happen.
why? (Score:5, Insightful)
"plans to use AirTags for tracking their drivers in the future."
Why would the company bother with AirTags? far better tracking technologies that are easily installed in trucks for bugger all.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, it's easy to install a GPS tracker in a device with a cellular connection, and power it from the vehicle. It's also easy (although illegal) for the driver to use a GPS jammer to thwart that kind of monitoring. This has sometimes-unexpected consequences for third parties [cnet.com].
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As an option for their customers to track their stuff?
I doubt they'd give them access to the pro gear.
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What tracking technology is simpler, cheaper, or significantly more functional than an AirTag? They cost like $30, require no skill to install or configure, and have no ongoing cost other than a few bucks to replace the battery every 2ish years. They're also very easy to conceal if that's important to you.
I looked into this for the purpose of tracking my own vehicle. The AirTag solution couldn't be beat for its low cost and simplicity. I'm very curious if there's a better solution I overlooked.
Not sure how I feel about this (Score:2, Interesting)
Both sides of the story feel a little slimy.
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Re:Not sure how I feel about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Both sides of the story feel a little slimy.
How? The woman wanted to know where her stuff was. She used AirTags to find out the contractor was lying to her. The only slimy thing was the contractor.
If you were moving cross country, wouldn't you want to know where your things were? There's an old saying: Trust, but verify. You trust the person moving your stuff is doing the right thing, but you can also verify if they are doing so.
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If you put that as a condition into the contract you're forming with the delivery service and they consent to it, fair game in most jurisdictions.
Re:Not sure how I feel about this (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is that in some places that would be considered illegal if there was no consent.
If you put that as a condition into the contract you're forming with the delivery service and they consent to it, fair game in most jurisdictions.
It's my property. I can do what I want with it. No consent needed. I am paying you to move my stuff and have it arrive in good condition and on the day you said it would arrive. I want to know where it's at. As I said, trust but verify.
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Like I said, you can make it part of the contract and are of course entitled to refuse anyone who doesn't agree to it.
But just because it's your property doesn't entitle you to do everything with it that you want IF it also affects other people without their consent before the law. In general, protection of your rights do stop at the point where you're infringing on someone else's protected rights.
Re:Not sure how I feel about this (Score:5, Interesting)
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But essentially in all countries that comply with the EU's GDPR (including California perhaps) tracking without consent, perhaps with exceptions of things that were stolen from you, could land you in hot water.
You can guess it from Apple's own advertising that they already want to cover their asses:
Re: Not sure how I feel about this (Score:2)
So hypothetically let's say I have an AirTag that happens to be part of my belongings, and I need it shipped across the country. The shipper says there has been a holdup of some sort, and things will be delayed. I'm not allowed to check the AirTag location? Or am I allowed to check it but not use it to call out the lying shipper?
I agree that this sort of thing needs to be fleshed out in law because the tech has the potential to easily identify illegal activity. What happens if the shipper declares that you
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If there is some very suspicious hold up, that would warrant a checkup, it might be perfectly justified if there happened to be an AirTag in your belongings and you looked up where it is right now. And you might be completely in the right, while the delivery driver is the only one in the wrong.
If you're putting it there knowingly, for the purposes of tracking though
Re: Not sure how I feel about this (Score:3)
While I understand your argument, I'd have more sympathy for the position if you addressed the contractors dishonesty at all.
Why is it most people get into a tizzy about privacy only when THEY get caught lying? That seems to be the only thing people truly care about -- the ability to lie with impunity.
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The underlying problem is that two wrongs don't make a right.
This kind of after the fact reasoning that's also used by a lot of government agencies to justify their blanket surveillance and then say: look, we caught this guy there who was totally up to no good. So that makes it right! Nothing to hide nothing to fear!
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The underlying problem is that two wrongs don't make a right.
In this case there's a disagreement about how many wrongs there were. Many Europeans see two, many (most?) Americans see only one.
look, we caught this guy there who was totally up to no good. So that makes it right!
From my perspective, and I think that of others who agree with me, the reason it was fine for the person to track their property has nothing to do with whether the driver did anything wrong. It's because they have a right to do what they want with their property. They weren't tracking the truck, and they weren't tracking the driver, because if they had switched drivers or load
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That stuff tends to make you paranoid about things like these, because between private use and state institutional (ab)use is just the thin line of using a private contractor.
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I can see those concerns, however whether it is government or private, tracking someone else's property is a totally different question than tracking your own, and both are completely separate from a bug that can transmit audio or video.
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And now and then you get people who are surprised to found that their Alexa recorded everything and has kept recordings dating back years after requesting the data.
I've been there myself in Communist Romania. The "that won't possibly happen to me" attitude is what many people appear to have until it happens to them as well eventually.
I hope I'm just overreacting. But some better legal framework that accounts for today's consumer
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The "that won't possibly happen to me" attitude is what many people appear to have until it happens to them as well eventually.
Oh, I wouldn't say that. I wasn't trying to say that governments don't do that sort of thing, in fact in the US there have been court cases about whether police have to get a warrant to put a GPS tracker on someone's car. Which means the police believe they shouldn't have to. I was just saying that allowing people to track their own property need not open the gates to allowing the government to spy on you (more than it already does).
But some better legal framework that accounts for today's consumer technology seems something that should be done.
Agreed, though I'm not sure the GDPR is the way to go.
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That would be like using a cruise missile where birdshot would do: it would probably address your bird problem, but neither in an efficient fashion, nor keeping collateral damage limited.
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It's my property. I can do what I want with it.
That's obviously not true. There are loads of things you aren't allowed to do with your own property. Most places have building regulations, limits on pollution from cars, prohibitions from building dangerous stuff like bombs.
In countries where privacy means much you can't just stick a tracker on your stuff and then give it to someone else. You have to trust them with it, and sue them if they abuse that trust.
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I still find it shocking that you have so few privacy rights over there.
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The thing is that in some places that would be considered illegal if there was no consent.
Oh bullshit, the contract was for the shipper to move their household goods, the airtag is clearly a consumer electronic device and consumer electronic device are an expected part of a Family's household goods. Those rat bastards have been preying on military families for decades, the companies that hire them need to be blacklisted and lose their DOT licenses for engaging in Interstate fraud.
Re: Not sure how I feel about this (Score:2)
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There's an old saying: Trust, but verify..
The origin of that saying is from soviet politics, not exactly a bright shiny era I'd want to emulate. Moreover though, it was translated and sort of popularized in the US in terms of foreign policy, to understand a culture gap. Applying it as some aphorism, some rule for life, is just a minefield.
It's not exactly the influence we want for Karen, I mean Valerie, while she stalks movers without their knowledge.
That's really the key here in my opinion. Sure, the mover shouldn't lie about where they were, that
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As always, imaginary hypocrisy is the worst kind! (Meaning, I don't take your babysitter example as a given, at all.)
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Imaginary hypocrisy is the best kind. It's literally the best tool we have for examining our beliefs going back thousands of years. How else do you examine your beliefs besides considering various scenarios that might challenge them?
Just dismissing something that challenges your ideas, even if you use an exclamation mark, is no argument at all.
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My argument, in this case, is that I don't agree with your certainty about what "Twitter would be OK with" in a case that you made up -- and certainly details of the case would matter -- but you've already decided what that would be, and are taking this thing that you've imagined would happen as evidence.
(Also, Twitter is millions of people, and somebody on there will be found to agree with any position you name, but I don't think that's central to my point.)
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I think you've misunderstood my point, you're bringing some other argument here, probably because I used a charged example.
I am not certain about what Twitter would do. If I were certain, I would have said certainly rather than probably. And sure, there could be details of the hypothetical case that could make it go either way. That's the point.
What I was responding to matters. In short the poster above me said that it's OK to track someone without their knowledge when your property is on the line, that it'
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Just pretend that Mr. McNulty was stalking (I mean tracking) the babysitter who borrowed their car in exactly the same way. Try to pretend Twitter would be OK with it when he caught her lying about where she went. They'd probably think she deserved to know about the Airtag slipped in the glove box and that Mr. McNulty was a monster.
Maybe it's because I'm not on twitter, but I would not have a problem with someone tracking their car when it's borrowed. If you don't want someone to know where you're going, use a different way to get there than borrowing their car and lying about where you're going.
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Again though, the trick isn't that he doesn't have a right to do that, I think most people agree there.
The question, is whether or not she has a right to know? The number of places where people might be being tracked or monitored without their knowledge, are only going up.
That example isn't definitive. Say they have contractors in their house. If they are monitoring them on hidden cameras and watching it later, sure it's their house, but should the contractors know?
If you are working from home and the compa
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Fair questions, though I would put the cameras in a different category. A tracker is tracking the car, not the person driving it. A small but important distinction IMO. The car owner will know where you took the car, but without any audio or video would have no idea whether you were getting lunch, buying drugs, or having sex in the back seat. This affects the equation on the right to know question. I would come down on no, I don't have to tell you that I'm tracking my property that you borrowed (though
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I agree they're different categories and coming down on every single one is very hard. But yeah, the main question is whether "trust, but verify" as a pithy generalization with its soviet surveillance implications works . . . in that sense, they're not that far off I don't think. If "trust, but verify" is good enough to justify the tracker, it's fair to consider what else it's good for.
(In other words, a slipper slope is not a fallacy when people are already throwing around crazy absolutes.)
Re: Not sure how I feel about this (Score:2)
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Not a similar situation. Nice attempt at a straw man though.
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If I'm over at your home working on your HVAC system, you're welcome to watch me the entire time. I don't see why delivery drivers should be subject to a higher level of privacy while they're working on your dime. Nothing slimy at all about that. Work should be performed competently and efficiently, or you can take a job with less responsibilities (and probably lower pay).
Lucky them (Score:2)
I would never have told the driver I was tracking him, as there would have been a fair chance he would have thrown all my stuff on the sidewalk to get rid of the tracker, or opened up all my boxes to find the tracker.
Silly people. I would have waited until the stuff was delivered, then lodged a complaint with the moving company - possible threatening them with a lawsuit and either get money back or damages in court.
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Silly people. I would have waited until the stuff was delivered, then lodged a complaint with the moving company - possible threatening them with a lawsuit and either get money back or damages in court.
The "moving company" is a guy with a cell phone. He takes the booking then calls around to find someone with a truck to actually haul the stuff, while taking a cut off the top.
So you would be filing your lawsuit against a disconnected phone. Good luck.
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And as a Canadian, it is my duty to apologize for all those idiots.
And so, I apologize.
Signed,
a Canadian.
P.S.: Again, we're very sorry about all this.
The turnpike to serfdom (Score:1)
Not a tech problem (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not a technical issue. Seems every time some technology is involved with a social issue, most immediately look to resolve it with tech. It's not an issue with the tech involved, but the people involved using the tech.
So, here is a challenge for folks going forward. Instead of "This Tech thing is bad. We need to change it so X doesn't happen." ask your self "This Rock|Knife|Sledge hammer thing is bad. We need to change it so X doesn't happen."
Prime example is spam. Email|Text|Phone call|USPS mail arrived as it was supposed to. So the tech worked. The issue is the people using the tech. If we'd put as many hours as we did devising tech workarounds to solving the spam issue, and put it into beating the crap out of people abusing it, it would have been time spent more effectively controlling the issue. AND I'd feel a whole lot more satisfied about my decade in being an email farm admin.
If a technical change still makes sense it's worth exploring. If it doesn't, you're looking at the wrong problem.
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If we'd put as many hours as we did devising tech workarounds to solving the spam issue, and put it into beating the crap out of people abusing it, it would have been time spent more effectively controlling the issue.
The irony here is that you think the best use of our time would have been negative reinforcement, when studies show again and again that positive reinforcement is a better way to control behavior. You would rather have the evil beaten out of everyone than see the goodness in them fostered. Evil begets evil. Your approach would create a world of the blind and toothless.
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You've never met Al Ral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Can't solve these problems after the fact, they have to be avoided. Sorry. In a village it's one thing, but it doesn't scale.
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Wait just a doggone minute (Score:2)
This a science+tech journal or news magazine or yuk blog
Just what part of New Jersey was sketchy?
There's layers to the Garden state, you know. Haven't you learned anything from the SNL clips?
Re: Wait just a doggone minute (Score:2)
Agreed! People don't realize how agricultural Jersey is. Southern Jersey is absolutely beautiful, with lots of farms. Growing up in Philly, I enjoyed Jersey sweet corn and loved driving through farmland on my way to OCNJ or other beach town. Newark and north Jersey has unfortunately become the face of the state, despite that fact that it's called "the garden state".
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You forgot to mention the landfill. [youtube.com]
Sounds like what I said (Score:5, Interesting)
"I was never tracking the driver, that was never my intention. I was tracking my belongings."
I used to in charge of rolling out iPhones to the organization I worked for. Set them up, register them, install AirWatch, the whole routine. One day I handed over a phone to one of the maintenance guys who grumbled about being tracked.
I told him, "We don't care where you are. We care about where the phone is."
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Hmm, and what about out of hours? The employee's personal time? Is it okay for the employee to turn the phone off or not out side of the work hours?
If it turns out that your tracking of a device, also leads to a perfect tracking of a person, then that's a real problem.
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You do what government people that have an Iphone do - turn it off at the end of your hours and turn it on when you get in the car to go to work.
Anyone can do that anyway (Score:2)
If you want to track someone, it's already pretty easy to buy other tech to follow someone by attaching a bug to their personal belongings or their cars.
This tech has been around since the 1960s. All it did was get smaller.
The real difference is that things like AirTags make it cheap and convenient - and also make it easy enough to find out if someone is doing it to you after a while.
Any attempts to make it super-easy to find the tags will also make it easier for bad guys to pull the tags off of your stolen
Shameless plug (Score:2)
I designed and sell my own water proof, multi-point mounted airtag cases designed for permanent mounting of stuff you need to track. For me it's my dirt bike, generator, kids bicycles, etc. One store owner bought a dozen to track his pizza delivery bags, so he could see both where his pizzas were, and his delivery staff.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/33408... [ebay.com]
Standards need to be set (Score:2)
Personally, I have no problem with confirming whether someone is being honest or not about issues with meeting their contractual obligations.
It's OK not to trust someone you don't have a personal history with. That's how you avoid getting scammed. And in a society where we don't do enough to catch and punish scammers, it is reasonable to be wary.
So yeah, if you're a mover who has agreed to go from A to B, you should expect someone to be watching if you slip off to C for a bit.
Re: (Score:1)
Location services? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The apps do, they all ask if you give consent and permission for the app to track your location.
However it's not explicit as to whether that is must for core functionality (your location on a map in a mapping application, or to find out where the nearest XYZ fast food is to you), or for additional purposes (marketing by location, selling your location onwards, and so on), and I feel that should be clarified.
Trackign stolen goods not worth the privacy loss (Score:2)
What's the issue here? (Score:1)
They were tracking their own property, not the driver. The driver evidently abandoned the truck to see his lady, and it didn't track him personally, as it was tracking the property. Not their fault he likely parked on the street near where that lady was. Now one issue is what expectation of privacy did the driver have during the job (or specifically, during the hours he was not driving but taking mandated rest breaks/sleeps), but I expect his contract says 'stay with vehicle' and 'take the agreed route'.
Wha
Iterstate moving is intentionally under-regulated (Score:1)
Having trouble finding relevant articles now, but when planning an interstate move a decade ago, there were lots of blogs talking about how states are not allowed to regulate interstate movers and they started doing extremely shady things like dropping belongings off in a warehouse then changing the bill mid move and holding the belongings hostage until the higher price is paid. Also how so called "reforms" made matters worse by blocking any attempts by states to ban such practices.
So, aside from the deb