Could Apple tags be used to find a missing person?

[Kaboom!]

You can use an Apple tag to locate stuff with your cell phone. Evidently, there’s an idea out there it could facilitate stalking. Which got me thinking.

Could it be used to find missing hikers?

What’s that? Hikers would have one in their pack as a kind of “essential”. Overhead search drones would be outfitted so they could pick up the Apple tag signal.

It shouldn’t be that expensive to outfit drones to find the tag, since the technology is already available in phones. I suppose you’d have to register your tag ID or email it to a friend or something to give to SAR if you went missing.

Thoughts?

 

[Trippy]

It seems only the owner of the tag can "see" where the tag is, and the trail is encrypted. Someone can correct me on that.

Maybe the technology could be adapted, though. Maybe the owner could generate a QR code that could be left with your reporting person along with the location you plan to be in? Then it could be texted to SAR?

This idea is so intriguing because it could be a very cheap solution.

 

[One Fat Marmot]

Here is a case where an Apple Air Tag was used to track where a missing skier had gone, but presumably, the location only worked e.g. at the top of the lift where there were a lot of people. Then, when the skier went out of bounds, and there was nobody, it didn't work anymore as a location device.

Should skiers who deliberately ski out of bounds and need to be rescued have to pay for their rescue?

A skier from Ontario went missing while skiing over the Christmas break at Red Mountain Resort in Rossland.

www.castanet.net

 

[Tower]

Here is a case where an Apple Air Tag was used to track where a missing skier had gone, but presumably, the location only worked e.g. at the top of the lift where there were a lot of people. Then, when the skier went out of bounds, and there was nobody, it didn't work anymore as a location device.

Should skiers who deliberately ski out of bounds and need to be rescued have to pay for their rescue?

A skier from Ontario went missing while skiing over the Christmas break at Red Mountain Resort in Rossland.

www.castanet.net

Yes, AirTag technology has often been described as “crowdsourced” meaning it has no GPS on its own. It pings nearby iPhones and uses their location information to pinpoint the AirTag’s own location. So, alone in the wilderness, they show nothing.

Apple AirTags only work because of a massive covert tracking network

Remember, Apple AirTags and ‘Find My’ app only work because of a vast, largely covert tracking network. Here's what you should know about the new device.

thenextweb.com

 

[Trippy]

So, supposing you were Julian Sands and had an Air Tag on you when you went missing. If there are smart phones in the airborne search hardware (e.g. drones/helicopters), they would be a context for the pings need for the locator?

I suppose, in this situation, the way SAR/LE uses pings to ping the phone with the missing hiker might be ALOT less laborious, but it sure would be great to have a little $30 chip carabiner-ed onto a pack in the wilderness as a safety device. I guess RECCO is kind of in this direction, but it's not implemented well by the industry.

 

[Tower]

So, supposing you were Julian Sands and had an Air Tag on you when you went missing. If there are smart phones in the airborne search hardware (e.g. drones/helicopters), they would be a context for the pings need for the locator?

I suppose, in this situation, the way SAR/LE uses pings to ping the phone with the missing hiker might be ALOT less laborious, but it sure would be great to have a little $30 chip carabiner-ed onto a pack in the wilderness as a safety device. I guess RECCO is kind of in this direction, but it's not implemented well by the industry.

I think the technology could be very useful soon, but I’m not sure we’re there yet? I have read a bunch of articles over years, so I could be wrong about the specifics: 1) They are water resistant (not waterproof) for about 30 minutes, so avalanches, rivers, rain and snow could be problems. 2) They don’t ping constantly and only a distance of about 100 meters. So if the drone flies by with an iPhone strapped to it, and the AirTag pings only once every minute or two, it could be too far away before the next ping. A small search area would improve the success.
But I think we’ll get there soon, as technology options improve and get cheaper.

 

[Rainforest]

I think the technology could be very useful soon, but I’m not sure we’re there yet? I have read a bunch of articles over years, so I could be wrong about the specifics: 1) They are water resistant (not waterproof) for about 30 minutes, so avalanches, rivers, rain and snow could be problems. 2) They don’t ping constantly and only a distance of about 100 meters. So if the drone flies by with an iPhone strapped to it, and the AirTag pings only once every minute or two, it could be too far away before the next ping. A small search area would improve the success.
But I think we’ll get there soon, as technology options improve and get cheaper.

The other problem I can see is that the Air Tag location goes to the owner of the Air Tag. Since SAR is only the passive crowd-source in this scenario, and not the owner, it won’t give them the location of the wearer. IMO there would have to be an inert receptor, like RECCO, on the Apple Tag, that would work for SAR but not for stalkers.

Really, backcountry users should have RECCO on everything and SAR would have to have custom RECCO readers (so crooks can’t use them to find potentially hidden victims).

Just thoughts…

 

[Tower]

The other problem I can see is that the Air Tag location goes to the owner of the Air Tag. Since SAR is only the passive crowd-source in this scenario, and not the owner, it won’t give them the location of the wearer. IMO there would have to be an inert receptor, like RECCO, on the Apple Tag, that would work for SAR but not for stalkers.

Really, backcountry users should have RECCO on everything and SAR would have to have custom RECCO readers (so crooks can’t use them to find potentially hidden victims).

Just thoughts…

Yes, you would have to plan this scenario in advance (if AirTags were more reliable), say by using the wife’s iPhone to track the husband’s AirTag while another iPhone was strapped to a drone providing location info. SAR would need an iPhone which had been linked to the AirTag before the person disappeared. That requires quite a bit of setup, which our missing folks, in most cases, would not have planned for.