Manzana has been sued for creating a wave of harassers with its product AppleTag. This month, more than three dozen victims were terrorized by stalkers using Apple AirTags have joined a class action lawsuit filed in a California court last December against Manzana.
They allege in an amended complaint that, in part because of the negligence of Manzanathe AirTags have become “one of the most dangerous and terrifying technologies used by stalkers” because they can be used easily, cheaply, and covertly to determine “real-time location information to track victims.”
Since the lawsuit was initially filed in 2022, the plaintiffs have alleged that there has been an “explosion of reports” showing that the AirTags are frequently used for harassment, including an increase in cases of harassment with AirTags internationally and over 150 police reports in the US as of April 2022.
More recently, there were 19 cases of harassment with AirTags in a single U.S. metropolitan area, Tulsa, Oklahoma, the complaint says.
This apparent escalation is worrying, the plaintiffs say, because Manzana has not done enough to mitigate the damage, and harassment with AirTags can lead to financial ruin. Victims are forced to spend a fortune hiring mechanics to dismantle their cars and locate the AirTags or to move repeatedly from their homes.
Harassment with AirTags It can also end in violence, including murder, the plaintiffs allege, and the problem is probably bigger than anyone knows, because bullying is historically underreported.
Many plaintiffs said they had no idea what the AirTags when they discovered that they were being used AirTags hidden to monitor their movements.
The plaintiffs want Manzana be responsible for raising awareness about how bullies use AirTagsnot only to inform people who are at risk of harassment, but also to make sure law enforcement is aware.
The plaintiffs say that Manzana failed to provide information to police that prevented them from accessing protective orders and filing criminal charges.
The complaint suggests other remedies that Manzana could provide, such as improving the consistency of security alerts AirTagwhich the plaintiffs claim only sometimes appear in iPhonesso that users are always aware when a AirTag It is close and at a dangerous distance.
“Manzana “you continue to find yourself in the position of reacting to the harms your product has unleashed, rather than prophylactically preventing them,” the complaint says.
National Network to End Domestic Violence technology specialist Corbin Streett said the threat model of Manzana seems to consider only the risks of strangers using AirTags for unwanted harassment, not abusive partners.
That’s a problem, since advocacy groups like the federally funded Bullying Prevention, Awareness and Resource Center report (PDF) that the “vast majority of bullying victims are harassed by someone they know” and that “Intimate partner stalkers are the most likely to approach, threaten and harm their victims.”
“I hope that Manzana keep your learning cap on and work to solve that part of the puzzle,” Streett said.
Via: Fudzilla
Editor’s note: I already knew this Manzana, which is why they disabled tracking on the friends app, even though you needed the person you were going to track to give you permission. I think there may be a solution, what I don’t understand is how they didn’t think this was going to happen.
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