HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — A cashier at the Virginia Beach Wegmans was convicted of giving a little girl an AirTag as she left the store back in July.
Connor Land was charged with one misdemeanor count of unlawful use of an electronic tracking device. He is currently appealing the case.
Experts say unwanted electronic tracking is an increasing problem throughout the country.
AirTags and other devices like them are supposed to be used to track personal property, like luggage at the airport, but some people are using them to unknowingly track others.
The News 3 Investigative Team wanted to look deeper into how they worked.
We purchased an AirTag for about $30. It’s about the size of a large coin.
WTKR Engineer Alex White is an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician. He set up the AirTag on his device and stashed it in one of our cars.
White selected an emoji in the Find My App on his device, which shows where they were traveling in the car.
White and WTKR's Director of Digital Media Jonathan Sham tracked Investigative Reporter Margaret Kavanagh from the station as she rode through the city of Norfolk.
The tracking was delayed a few minutes on the app, but White and Sham were able to see where she was traveling throughout the city.
Charles Kirkpatrick is a Senior Lecturer at Old Dominion University’s School of Cybersecurity. He said AirTags can be used for less-than-ideal purposes, like tracking individuals.
“The AirTag is constantly emitting a Bluetooth signal,” he said.
He said the Bluetooth signal transmits to the Find My Network.
“There's a variety of communication technologies that are on your phone that combine to make all of this work,” said Kirkpatrick.
Apple and Google announced in May that they are collaborating with industry leaders to figure out the best way to stop unwanted tracking.
They say the purpose of AirTags is to give people peace of mind about the location of their important personal items and say they continue to make improvements to help ensure the technology is being used as intended.
Kirkpatrick thinks they could make it easier for users by creating a system that is automatic, rather than requiring them to turn on different notifications.
“There's always room for improvement in technology,” said Kirkpatrick.
Apple declined our requests to be interviewed about AirTags.
“If you have any concerns about privacy, you might want to not own a mobile phone because you're being tracked everywhere you go,” said Kirkpatrick.
They provided us with information about how to detect unwanted tracking, which can be accessed here.
