How a simple AirTag changed the lives of an abused woman and her children

We have heard all kinds of stories about Apple’s AirTag, a device aimed at searching for lost objects, but which we have learned can be used to stop an organized gang and even uncover political scams. Apple does not guide them to locate people and in fact there is an entire alert system for this.

However, if it is for a good cause, it may be justified. And this is what happened to María, protagonist of a tough personal history with his now ex-partner and thanks to an AirTag he managed to be stopped when he was taking his children without authorization.

Context: an abused mother and a restraining order

It is worth starting by saying that María is not the real name of this story, but rather it is a fictitious name that we provide from Then13 to keep her anonymity and that of her two children safe, who, when this story was told, were 5 and 8 years old respectively. .

María had been suffering abuse for years from her partner and the father of her two children. Both physical and psychological. Although it is true that “he never laid a hand on the children,” María tells us, he did threaten them and make them suffer by seeing their aggressive behavior.

María spent years “enduring it so as not to harm the children, but they were already suffering too much with this situation.” Thus, he gathered courage and went to a police station to report the mistreatment. There was a quick trial in a court of violence against women and A restraining order was filed against her, although not against her children.. The latter worried him a lot.

And, “in a completely absurd and irrational way,” says María, it was established that the father would have the right to see his children two afternoons a week. And even though “the children didn’t even want to see him,” on the recommendation of María’s lawyer, he agreed to let her see the children.

The idea, says María, was that the restraining order be extended to minors and be issued as soon as possible. However, he could not prevent these visits to the children from taking place for two weeks. Through their respective lawyers, they agreed that he would pick them up at a certain point in the city with the help of an intermediary (María’s brother). I had to pick them up at 5:00 p.m. and bring them back at 8:00 p.m. to the same point.

The fear of a kidnapping and the AirTag as a solution

The agreement also stated that the children should not leave the city during the two hours that the father was taking care of them. However, Maria was not calm and I was afraid that the father would take them away, as would end up happening.. And, he tells us, he had previously threatened to take the children away and not be able to see them again. An act like this and without authorization, needless to say, can be considered a kidnapping.

It was autumn 2021, Apple’s AirTags had been released a few months ago and María, who had already heard about these locators, thought that they could be the best tool to prevent the father from taking the children out of the city without permission. far. He decided to hide two AirTags (one per child) in the inner lining of his coats. That way, the father would not discover that they were carrying that locator.

And here we make a small parenthesis to explain the real operation of an AirTagsince it is not a GPS that reports its position in real time. What these devices do is take advantage of the huge network of existing Apple devices to send your location every time you come across one of those devices.

For example, if the AirTag passes near a person wearing an iPhone, the accessory will take the opportunity to connect privately to that device and send its position to Apple’s servers so that the owner of the AirTag can see it. The owner of the iPhone will not even find out and his data will not be compromised in any case.

Of course, it should be said that if the AirTag is near a certain device that does not belong to its owner for a long time, it issues a notification to report possible unauthorized tracking. Even if it is an Android mobile. Luckily for this case, María’s ex-partner had an Android device and At that time the alert system was not in force for this platform.

First week, good. Second week, danger

Nothing went wrong in the father’s first two visits to the children. According to what the minors themselves told their mother. Their father had taken them to a city park both days. They did not want to go and were eager to return to their mother, but “as far as possible they were entertained and safe.” She, meanwhile, checked the ‘Search’ app on her iPhone to make sure that, indeed, the children did not leave the city.

However, things turned dark during the second week. To begin with, when María’s brother handed the children over to their father, he “came with a very bad attitude.” They had a small fight, but María’s brother did not want to argue in front of the little ones and simply urged her to “take good care of the children and not be one minute late from the scheduled time.”

María spent those afternoons “hooked on the ‘Search’ app” so as not to miss any updates on the children’s position. And making his own that “think wrong and you will be right”, he regretted that he was right in his fears. The AirTags were located outside the city. They also updated quite frequently and, seeing the path they had traveled, he sensed that they were on a Cercanías train.

María wanted to notify the police immediately, although those who were with her tried to calm her down in case this was a false alarm. However, they tried to communicate with the father by phone and he communicated all the time. “He had blocked us all,” says María, referring to the fact that she could not contact him from her own phone, but also through that of her brother and her mother.

Notice to the police and the hunt for the fugitive

Given the circumstances, María immediately called the police, although due to her nervous state, she admits, “she ended up calling the agent” who assisted her because he did not fully understand the situation. With more calm and coolness, his brother took the phone and explained the entire situation to the agent.

He explained the whole thing in broad strokes. The restraining order as a precedent, the father’s continuous threats and, above all, that they had conclusive evidence that the children were not in the agreed radius. Thanks to the AirTag they knew that he had gone to another town located several kilometers away.

Up to three police officers showed up at María’s home in just a few minutes. There, already telling them out loud the complete story of the AirTag, they were able to sense that the children were at their paternal grandmother’s house. They didn’t know if they were still with their father or not. They sensed that being with their grandmother they would not be in danger, but in any case he was breaking the visitation agreement having taken them without permission several kilometers from the agreed area.

María remembers that one of the agents warned that “perhaps he will arrive at the agreed time to hand over the children again,” but he ruled it out almost instantly when he saw that there were only a few minutes left before 8:00 p.m., the time when it was supposed to happen. , and given the distance it would take around an hour and a half to arrive.

Arrest and happy ending for (almost) all parties

“I remember those very cloudy moments. I just wanted to get my children back, hug them and never let them see that unfortunate being again.” This is how María describes that moment when The agents notified another unit near the home where the children were. Given her nervous state, two of the three agents who had gone to her house decided to stay with her so that she would stay calm.

“They informed me of everything,” he remembers. “They told me that a patrol was going to go to the house and that not only were they going to bring the children, but they would also arrest him for breaking the agreement.” Indeed, that same thing happened. Although it is true that it was a very quick performance and María was able to be with her children again at dinner time, she says that it seemed like an eternity.

“They came shaking and didn’t stop crying all night.” Despite the good treatment of the police officers who brought them home, the situation was stressful for the children. And before all that, the minors say that their father “had been yelling at them the whole way.” “Now you will live with me and your grandmother,” he told them. He also threatened to beat them if they tried to flee or contact their mother, uncle or maternal grandmother.

It is worth saying that the children’s paternal grandmother behaved as expected in these cases. She herself had also called the police when she saw that her son appeared with the children, knowing of the bad intentions on the part of the father and knowing what the visitation agreement was like. He knew that he did not have permission to take them there and since his son was ignoring his advice, he should have had no choice but to call the police to have his own son arrested. “It was very hard,” María says her grandmother told her.

At the judicial level, this story became somewhat bizarre. The pertinent complaint for this attempted kidnapping was added to the case of mistreatment that was still being prosecuted. Although María does not want to give too many explanations about her ex-partner’s current situation, she does recognize that it was a turning point and that thanks to it she managed to make the restraining order effective for the children as well. They, who are the most important thing for María, live happily with their mother, their uncle and their maternal grandmother.

And everything, as María sums up well, “thanks to a gadget from Apple that I didn’t even know if it would work”. For our part, we can only thank María and her little ones for wanting to tell us their story.

Cover image | Generated with DALL-E 3 and Photoshop

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