Tennessee family at Orlando Disney World tracked by Apple AirTag

A Tennessee family says an Apple Air Tag device was used to track them during their visit to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. 

Jennifer Gaston said the family was on their way back to their car on the theme park's monorail when suddenly they received a notification that the owner of an AirTag device had been tracking them, according to FOX 35 Orlando and WKRN-TV. 

"We were terrified, we were confused, hurt, and scared," Gaston said. "She [her daughter] literally watched it follow us from the tram all the way back to our vehicle."

Gaston's daughter said the small Apple device was apparently tracking them for several hours during their time at the Disney theme parks. 

In a panic, the family searched for the device once they got off the tram and back to their car in the parking lot, but couldn't locate it. 

"As she was refreshing it, it showed the AirTag was still in our parking spot somehow. When we were frantically shaking out clothes and dumping everything out of our bags, it fell out," Gaston said. 

Apple AirTags are manufactured as tracking devices for personal belongings such as wallets, purses and briefcases in the event someone loses their own property.

They are sold directly by Apple online starting at only $29.99.

But they have also been used by criminals and stalkers in the past particularly to track the movements of attractive women and discover the location of their home residences. 

In January Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooks Nader discovered someone had attached an Apple AirTag device to her person while clubbing in Manhattan, and that someone had been tracking her movements across New York City all night, the New York Post reported. 

The model immediately took to Instagram and lashed out against the tech giant, accusing it of not considering the danger such devices can create. Her post, directed to her 827,000 followers helped shed light on the issue. 

“This ‘device’ followed me for the last five hours to every location and [it belonged to] no one in my ‘network.’ It also wasn’t a phone or tablet, it was an ‘item,'” she wrote. “For those asking, it’s not my AirTag, it’s someone randoms, who must have slipped it into my belongings while out. Thank you all for checking in and sending helpful articles. I want this to be a PSA to all my ladies to please please check your belongings.”

“Ladies, check your bags, coat, pockets and surroundings,” the 26-year-old model urged her fans. 

Instagram / @brooksnader

The Sports Illustrated model also shared a screenshot of another AirTag via Instagram Stories to warn people of the danger and chastise the Big Tech company: “@Apple, did you take into consideration the danger and potentially fatal consequences this device has?”

Apple says AirTags also  prevent unwanted tracking and stalking because they notify people if they have such a device somewhere on their person that isn’t registered to them.

“AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking,” Apple says on its website. “If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert.”

But some disagree. The controversy had led some privacy groups to call upon Apple to pull the product from their shelves as a precautionary measure to protect the public. 

In January, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP said that while Apple says it protects people's privacy, it really just "profits from surveillance."

Much like the Gaston family at Disney, Apple's alert is what tipped Nader off to the fact someone had apparently slipped an AirTag was in her coat pocket.

In both cases however, it appears neither the Gastons nor Nader received or noticed the notification until several hours after the device was placed on their person. 

"When survivors and advocates warned Apple that AirTags were dangerous, the company refused to listen. They claimed that their technical fixes would prevent abuse," STOP Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn said in a statement. "Today, we see that they’re wrong and that AirTags are being abused in exactly the way we feared," Cahn wrote. 

In the past, Canadian law enforcement have warned the public that criminals are using AirTags to track cars they want to steal. New Jersey State Police have also warned their own police officers that criminals appear to be using Apple AirTags to track them.

In the instant Florida case, Orange County deputies said they could not classify the Gaston family's report as a criminal incident because without the AirTag it was impossible to determine the intent of the person who allegedly placed it on their person.