Two women in Michigan recently filed a new lawsuit against Apple after discovering hidden trackers in their vehicles. The legal complaint claims the company failed to provide working safety alerts when abusive former partners used the small tracking devices to stalk their daily movements.
The recent lawsuit highlights major gaps in the basic privacy protections built into these tiny consumer locators.
One victim found a hidden tracker but never received warnings
In the lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Michigan, one of the unnamed women detailed how a former partner repeatedly appeared at her private locations over the summer. The partner showed up at a park and a fireworks event, even after she tried to hide her car. The woman eventually moved her camper to a new spot, but the partner found her there as well.
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Her young son finally discovered a hidden AirTag stashed inside her vehicle, which she threw into a nearby lake. Throughout this entire ordeal, the woman states she never received a single alert on her iPhone warning her that an unknown tracker was traveling with her. The product design is supposed to trigger an alert in these situations, but the system failed to warn her.
A second victim faced similar tracking without receiving proper alerts
The second woman in the lawsuit reported a similar situation after leaving a long abusive relationship. When she moved into a new apartment in early 2023, her former partner appeared at her door on the very first day. Two weeks later, she found a hidden tracker placed underneath the back seat of her car. She immediately reported the stalking to local police, but the harassment continued.
This second victim used an Android smartphone, which historically struggled to detect the trackers in the background. While the device maker eventually introduced better background scanning options for people outside of its own iOS software ecosystem, the lawsuit argues that these delayed protections amount to simple negligence and a defective product design.
By bringing these safety failures to court, the plaintiffs hope to hold the manufacturer accountable for releasing a product without sufficient anti-stalking safeguards in place. The lawsuit seeks damages for invasion of privacy and violations of state consumer protection laws.
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