![\"Side-by-side](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/airtag-moving-sbs.png\")
Your iPhone or iPad will warn you if an AirTag is found moving with you. It will even show you the path the tracker has taken alongside you overtime.<\/p>\n
The speaker is a primary component of the company\u2019s anti-tracking strategy, so much so that the second-generation AirTag, released this year and replacing the original, emits a 50% louder sound<\/a>. While that aids in finding stuff you\u2019ve misplaced, it definitely increases the likelihood that a victim of stalking will hear an alert sound. Apple and Google, not notable collaborators, worked together in 2023 to release an anti-stalking proposal<\/a>, which both companies have adopted, including audio alerts.<\/p>\n Apple originally had an AirTag (and third-party devices certified as Find My items) emit a sound when it was moved after three days in the same location. Advocates for victims of domestic violence and groups concerned with privacy urged a shorter time period. Apple updated the alert, just a few months after the product\u2019s 2021 release, to trigger at a shorter and random interval. Since mid-2021, an AirTag or any Find My item chirps when moved between 8 and 24 hours after its paired device was last within Bluetooth range; the randomness makes it harder for a tracking party to predict when it might make a sound.<\/p>\n If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device and an Apple or Google tracker moves with you for a short period of time, your device will alert you and provide a map of where you\u2019ve been tracked so far. This also lets you play a sound on the tracker device\u2014something that\u2019s not possible if the speaker has been removed.<\/p>\n Not being a lawyer, I can\u2019t argue whether or not ElevationLab\u2019s product comes with liability. However, using an AirTag, Find My item, or Google Find Hub tracker to acquire the location of someone without their permission may be a crime or risk a lawsuit, depending on the jurisdiction.<\/p>\n There are different ways to disable an AirTag or other tracker you discover, typically by rotating the back case and removing its battery. EFF\u2019s Galperin has more direct advice: \u201cI think that encouraging people to hit their AirTags with a hammer is a fine idea. They may need to hit it several times.\u201d<\/p>\n A misfired pin<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been purchasing products from ElevationLab since their 2012 ElevationDock. The company has always had an eye for elegance coupled with problem-solving.<\/p>\n This is what makes the company\u2019s AirTag Silencer an absolutely baffling misfire, something that you would have thought would have called out as enabling behavior by some customers that no company would want to be associated with.<\/p>\n ElevationLab can\u2019t prevent speaker-removing hardware from being sold or instructions from being disseminated. But the company should not be producing a case-hardened steel piece of precision goods that may look like a pin, but is a razor-sharp double-edged sword. Pull this product from sale.<\/p>\n [Glenn Fleishman<\/a> is a printing and comics historian, Jeopardy champion, and serial Kickstarterer. His current books in preparation, which you can pre-order, are Flong Time, No See<\/a>, and That One Matt Bors Comic<\/a>. Other books include Six Centuries of Type & Printing<\/a> and How Comics Are Made<\/a>.]<\/p>\n