A new class action lawsuit brought against Apple alleges that AirTags, coin-sized Bluetooth trackers designed to be placed in luggage or other easily lost belongings, are being used by stalkers and abusers. Legal analyst Tracy A. Pearson explains how this tech can be so dangerous -- and why there are very few ways to protect yourself from them.

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This $29 Piece of Tech Is Incredibly Dangerous, a Legal Expert Says

well, you may know this, but Apple is facing a lawsuit brought by two women claiming that they are being stalked using a piece of technology that cost a little under $29. It's the Apple air tag and joining us now to discuss a little bit more about this suit and the connection between tech and privacy is legal expert Tracy Pearson Tracy. Thank thank you so much for joining us. You know if people are unfamiliar with these air tags, they're literally put on wallet keys, your cell phones and find them. Yeah, if you lose them, you can find them using the app to find them. But the suit argues that air tags are the weapon of choice for stalkers and abusers. So how did that impact? These two plaintiffs? Thank you for having me. It's great to see you this morning. This case is scary. There are two named plaintiffs, Lauren Hughes and a jane Doe Lauren use had a relationship that lasted about three months after that relationship. She alleges that she was stalked in the process of trying to move. She was alerted that an air tag was tracking her. Uh, and when she tried to figure out what was going on, she checked her car, She checked a bunch of different places and discovered that there was one of these little air tags or about the size of a quarter that had been colored in with a sharpie put in a baggie and put underneath one of her, her car wheel wheel wheel wells and as a result of that, she went to Apple and Apple couldn't tell her how long it had been there. She had gone to the police, the police uh offered nothing but a cease and desist letter for her. And so she believes that her location was compromised. After she started to see pictures of her new neighborhood appearing on social media as a result of the postings of this person. The second person is a jane doe. She has obscured her identity for concerns out of her physical safety and retaliation. And what happened with her, she alleges is that she was involved in a very contentious custody case and she discovered one of these air tags in her child's backpack. Um She didn't understand why her, her soon to be ex spouse had been able to identify where she was with such accuracy and she checked that backpack. And sure enough there was an air tag there. She removed it, she did And another one appeared in its place not long after. So she contends she also suffered injury as a result. I mean my goodness, those two stories sound incredibly terrifying. I mean, just since it's released just in April of last year, there have been over 150 police reports filed in connection with air tags including cases of murder. I mean if people are really worried this morning, is there anything that they can do to protect themselves about this? No, really, to be honest with you And in my research and reading about this, these air tags are everywhere. I've used some of the apps that are available to folks um to be able to check and ascertain whether these things are active around them and I have hundreds of them around me right now as we sit here. Um what you can do however, is to go to a website and I think we're gonna put some information about this out there which is W. W. Tech safety or go and there's some resources to create a safety plan. And that safety plan is key in protecting your data and protecting your location. People don't think about that. They put their location on their instagram profiles, on their twitter profiles and they're based on files and you want to be careful about that. You want to expect inspect your belongings regularly. You want to avoid using bags that have zipper enclosures, pockets on the outside, that you can slip one of these things in quickly. You want to check your car regularly to check underneath your wheel wells behind your license plates in the windshield, between the windshield and the window. Where these things can be slipped very easily if you ride a bike check under your seat. There are loads of places where they can hide. You want to, if you identify one physically identify one, you want to make sure that you identify the serial number and you want to make sure that you know Tate that and then you want to see what instructions are available for how to disable them because they need to be disabled. Don't discard them at your home. You want to check your mail and make sure that your mail isn't containing these objects. Maybe check your mail away from your home like at the post office and Tracy we only have a few seconds left here but Apple has already released one major update and they say it is designed to make it harder to abuse these air tag tracking capabilities. Is that the alert? Because I heard that you can set up alerts where you will be notified if there are air tags following you are with you at the time. So how does that play into this? Yes, they have tried to update their systems to be able to allow you to do that. You can also do this now we'll be able to do this through your Mac computer at home but that only alerts you whether they're they're following you or there's something tracking you. Uh The problem is that this isn't inherently dangerous item according to this lawsuit because it is used for tracking and Apple was warned that this was a concern during the production and design phases and they did nothing about it. Hence the lawsuit which apparently includes almost everyone in the United States unless you're an officer of Apple. Alright, this is scary situation. Take precautions if you can. Thank you so much Tracy. Pearson for breaking all that down for us.