A woman believes someone used AirPods to track her, leaving her in a “furious” state of self-defense and anxiety over the possibility she may be under the watchful eye of a stalker.
TikTok user Dani (@danisodope) says she’s been unable to locate the AirPods that repeatedly pushed notifications to her phone. She also shares how previously, she found a strange Apple AirTag on her vehicle and while she was able to locate and dispose of that, the AirPods are still nowhere in sight.
The incident occurred while she was out shopping and there was an approximately four-hour interval before the first notification she received on her phone followed by the second one she received, signaling that whoever owned the AirPods were pinging their location in order to presumably track Dani’s movements.
She uploaded a viral TikTok urging women to be aware of their surroundings and arm themselves as people are coming up with “slick” ways to track women. She added in a caption for the video, “I’ll be carrying Sara McGlockglen with me from now on. Im not playing woth these creeps!”
“This is my third time trying to record this video because I am still shaking a little bit, and I am nervous and I don’t understand what’s going on right now,” Dani begins the clip. “But I’m still shaking because I’m furious and I feel like I’m going to have to defend myself in a really ugly situation.”
Then showing a screen recording from her phone, the TikToker reveals a prompt she received on her iPhone that says that her “current location can be seen by the owner of this item.” The item is a pair of AirPods. Dani goes on to explain why this is so troubling.
“Now as you can see it says clear as day, right here, first seen at 6:22 pm. Pop up on my phone until 10:03,” she shares. “And after getting a notification, I was able to zoom in and look at the map of where I was being tracked and I literally was tracked all the way from my sister’s house to the store and back. Literally every store we stopped at I was able to zoom in on that map and see that I was tracked to that location and back to my sister’s house.”
Dani believes there was someone who had clearly managed to track her by using AirPods in conjunction with Apple’s “Find My” feature for stalking purposes. She adds that it isn’t the first time this has happened either and that someone had used a different product from the tech company in order to do so.
“But again the notification did not pop up until 10:03 to be exact. This is the second time this year of 2023 that I’ve been tracked,” she claims. “The very first time it happened I was out with one of my girlfriends going to brunch and when we came back from brunch, I noticed that I got a notification on my phone letting me know the same thing—that I was being tracked by an AirTag. Instead of it being AirPods, I was tracked by an AirTag.”
She says she then checked her car and discovered an AirTag attached to the back of her license plate. “Ladies y’all gotta be careful out here, like it’s getting ugly,” Dani warns. “We already know there’s a whole femicide going on right now, don’t get caught lacking.”
She urges women to be alert when they’re out and about, adding that they should carry some sort of weapon for self-defense if necessary. “Because people are getting slick. Like I said I’m shaking moreso because I’m furious, because this is the second time this happened,” she continues. “And because I feel like I’m gonna have to seriously defend myself because I can’t find that AirPod.”
Despite searching her purse, car, and person thoroughly, she still has no idea where the AirPod(s) could possibly be and believes that someone managed to hide it somewhere that’s impossible for her to find.
“I have strip searched my car, dumped out my purse, even checked in my hoodie ’cause maybe the person walked past me and, you know, dropped it in my hoodie. I can’t find it,” Dani says. “So, this means that I possibly may be tracked all the way back home, although I have turned my location off since all of this, but, still, I don’t—at this point, I don’t know… Ladies, be careful. Be aware of your surroundings, and for the love of everything sacred, don’t be afraid to claim someone’s life. OK? If it means you versus them? Choose you.”
Glamour UK penned a piece on how some people are using AirPods and AirTags in order to track women, highlighting an incident where one woman, after discovering she was being tracked with an Apple device, went to the police. However, she expressed that authorities weren’t well-equipped to deal with the situation, adding she felt they had no idea how to properly pursue action against a suspected perpetrator utilizing this tracking methodology.
In June, Las Vegas police arrested 39-year-old Harsharn Ghag, who was able to track a woman upon gaining access to her Apple account and pinging the location of some AirPods that were connected to a previous iPhone, according to 8 News Now.
Fox 26 Houston reported on a similar incident in September 2022, where a woman claimed she was receiving notifications that there were a pair of AirPods on her person or near her that were constantly being pinged by their owner, a similar experience to what Dani endured. Upon speaking with an Apple employee, the woman says she was informed by the worker that the store had received complaints from several people who said they were being tracked via AirPods and AirTags as well.
@danisodope I’ll be carrying Sara McGlockglen with me from now on. Im not playing woth these creeps! #danisodope #danirants #fypシ #payattention #airpodtracking #beware #besafe #youcantmakethisstuffup #whatisgoingon #trafficing #openyoureyes #besafe ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound
Commenters who responded to Dani’s video expressed their shock, sympathy, and fear over Dani’s situation.
“Thissssss omg so scary!!!” one viewer wrote.
“Oh wow this is crazy! Be safe fam,” another urged.
Other folks offered helpful suggestions and best practices to locate the AirPods, along with recommendations on where ill-willed individuals may hide them.
“On the notification it should have the option to make the AirPods make a noise so u can find them,” one user said.
“Make sure you look even on the outside of car…between the hood and windshield, make sure it’s not taped to the bottom of your car, look everywhere,” a second wrote.
“Remove those off your iCloud or how about you get a new iCloud,” a person suggested.
“Does your sister have AirPods? Make sure they aren’t picking up hers. Sometimes my phone picks up my own AirTags or AirPods and tells me I’m being,” a further commenter shared.
The Daily Dot has reached out to both Apple and Dani via email.