Many pet owners slip AirTags into collars to keep watch over wandering cats and dogs, but Apple warns against it.
In summary:
Macworld highlights Apple’s explicit warning that AirTag 2 is designed for tracking objects only, not people or pets despite enhanced features.
Built-in anti-stalking privacy alerts and theft recovery limitations make AirTags problematic for tracking living beings effectively.
Apple’s stance reflects design constraints rather than usage control, as privacy features fundamentally hinder pet tracking capabilities.
Midway through the seventh paragraph of its press release about the new AirTag, Apple reiterates its surprisingly unambiguous position on the device’s intended usage. “Designed exclusively for tracking objects,” the company writes, “and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates a suite of industry-first protections against unwanted tracking…” It may have got a louder speaker and longer effective tracking range, but the updated AirTag still doesn’t have “tracking anything with a pulse” on its feature list.
The first half of that italicised section makes sense, because Apple wishes to distance itself from the criminals and abusers who misuse the AirTag to stalk their victims. This was particularly widespread in the device’s early days, before privacy measures were introduced to make it beep when separated from its owner and send alerts to unknown smartphones it detected nearby, but still remains a concern to this day.
