A judge in California found that plaintiffs in a class action suit against Apple AirTag had “made sufficient claims for negligence and product liability.” On Friday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco quashed Apple’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
Originally filed in December 2022, the lawsuit was amended last year in October. 3 plaintiffs in the case claim the tech giant rushed the product to market. They allege that AirTags were made available for use without safeguards that can prevent stalking.
“Apple’s design of the AirTag was defective because the product did not—and does not—perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would have expected it to perform when used or misused in an intended or reasonably foreseeable way,” the plaintiffs wrote in the original lawsuit.
Based on court documents, the plaintiffs state they are “aware that individuals can receive unwanted tracking alerts for benign reasons”. The plaintiffs claim that one can be tracked by simply having someone’s keys with an AirTag attached. In another instance, being a passenger that has AirPods inside exposes a person to tracking.
The plaintiffs wrote, “We also have seen reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes.”
Apple’s attempts to make improvements still left AirTags as the “weapon of choice for stalkers and abusers”. As a result, the plaintiffs claim they fell victim to stalkers.
The judge didn’t decide yet whether Apple is legally responsible for AirTags being used in stalking. While California law might not require Apple to do more, the judge said it’s too early to make that call. He dismissed most of the lawsuit’s arguments but allowed claims of negligence and faulty product design to proceed.
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AirTag Safety Improvements
Apple’s AirTag is a tool to help you track down everyday items like keys, bags, or electronics. Using Apple’s vast network of iPhones and other devices, AirTags can anonymously connect with these devices to show you the location of your lost belongings on a map.
Apple has in the past introduced remedies to discourage misuse. Currently, iPhone users are alerted in the event a location tag not associated with them is travelling with them. The company has also introduced an app to detect unwanted AirTag tracking for Android devices.
Last year, Google and Apple, announced that they were jointly submitting a proposal meant to help the industry deal with unwanted tracking. The industry-wide specification was a draft and was submitted via the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
