A suspected truck thief was shot dead by the trucks owner after that owner used an Apple AirTag to track him down in San Antonio.
KHOU reports that the San Antonio Police Department said that the incident occurred on Wednesday on the citys southeast side. The trucks owner used an Apple AirTag to track down the suspected individual who stole his vehicle.
Law enforcement officials first received notice of a possible stolen truck around 1 PM local time on Wednesday. However, they didnt have the time to respond to the stolen truck report before the trucks owner used an Apple AirTag to track down the individual who allegedly stole the vehicle.
According to Fox News, the alleged thief did not know that the Apple AirTag was tracking the truck. When authorities arrived on the scene, they found shell casings from a gun and two cars with their windows shot out.
There hasnt been a determination about possible charges against the suspect in the shooting yet. However, Officer Nick Soliz wanted to clarify that individuals should never take matters into their own hands with suspected stolen property issues.
Soliz said:
If you are to get your vehicle stolen, please do not take matters into your own hands like this, and Its never safe, as you can see by this incident.
An Apple spokesperson spoke with Fox News Digital and stated that a previous update by the company noted that the company would work with law enforcement when one of its AirTags is used to track down criminal activity.
The spokesperson said:
AirTag [was] designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another persons property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag. Its why the Find My network [is built] with privacy in mind, uses end-to-end encryption, and why we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking. We hope this starts an industry trend for others [to also] provide [these sorts of] proactive warnings in their products.
In general, the AirTags are intended for personal purposes. Still, some have used them to address criminal situations in some cases, and the company has specific policies about how to handle this.
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