Car Theft In Canada Rises, Perpetrators Take Advantage Of Apple's AirTags Technology

JAKARTA - Apple devices are being used again for crimes. This time a thief in Canada took advantage of the location technology built into AirTags devices to steal the targeted car.

From a York County Police report, Canada, investigators have identified a new method used by thieves to track and steal high-end vehicles, where they leverage the AirTag's location-tracking capabilities. The thief will detect where the location of the victim's house is, then steal his car from there.

Since September 2021, police officers in the area have investigated five incidents in which suspects used AirTags‌ in the theft of high-end vehicles.

According to MacRumors, Sunday, December 5, thieves target vehicles they find in public areas and parking lots, placing AirTags in out-of-sight areas, such as under the rear trunk of cars and fuel caps, in hopes that they won't be found by car owners.

Even so, thieves have no way of disabling Apple's anti-tracking feature that alerts users when nearby and unknown AirTags track their location, but not all victims own an iPhone or act on notifications from the tool.

So far the police have only found five cases of theft using AirTags, but this number is not small. Last year alone more than 2,000 vehicles were stolen in the area, but it's not clear whether all of the car thieves used AirTags in this regard.

This is not the first time Apple products have been used by criminals. Previously, the Apple Watch was also used by a group of seven-member robbers in the United States to rob a man who brought 500,000 US dollars last year.

The robbers first saw the victim believing he had brought the cash. To stalk the victim, they hid the Apple Watch they had bought beforehand, linked it to their AT&T account, then put it under the bumper of the victim's car. Then track the victim's car using the Find My application on the iPhone.

After finding the victim's car, one of the robbers smashed the car window with a gun, hoping to find a bag containing $500,000 worth of cash. But they found nothing in the car.