Apple's smartwatches and the Life360 app are not meant for tracking people, as one man in Nashville, Tennessee, learned the hard way.
According to police arrest affidavits, the man in question was arrested Friday for attaching an Apple Watch to his girlfriend's car to track her whereabouts.
Police identified the man responsible for the attempted stalking as 29-year-old Lawrence Welch.
Apple Watch Tracking Details
According to a report from WSMV 4, officers arrived at the Family Safety Center on Murfreesboro Pike after the Family Safety Center's security called authorities informing them that Welch showed up at the center while his victim, Welch's girlfriend, was trying to acquire an order of protection.
The victim told police that Welch threatened to kill her multiple times and that she had come to the Family Safety Center in the past. The victim then told police that she and Welch had been using the Life360 app to know of each other's whereabouts, but she turned off the app before visiting Family Safety Centers in the past. The victim would then receive texts from Welsh on these occasions, demanding her to inform him of her whereabouts and call him.
However, in the victim's latest trip to the Family Safety Center, Welch eventually went to the Family Safety Center and crouched by the wheel nearest to the front passenger's door instead of approaching or entering the building. Officers spotted an Apple Watch attached to the wheel's spokes when they arrived, which was later confirmed to be Welch's.
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According to Apple Insider, Welch used his Apple Watch as a workaround for the deactivation of the victim's Life360 app on their device. Welch kept his version active on the Apple Watch and relied on that to track her location.
Welch is facing two domestic assault charges from events that happened in July 2021 which led to an arrest in December 2021. Police added one additional charge to Welch's record: the attaching of an electronic tracking device to his girlfriend's vehicle.
Apple Watch Tracking: Is It Possible? Illegal?
As Welch demonstrated, tracking or stalking someone using an Apple Watch is possible, with the only catch being that people have to use their own Apple Watch to do it.
Tracking the Apple Watch is possible through the Find My app, which was meant to help people find missing belongings through GPS, per Apple's official website.
People can also track others using the Find People app, which allows friends and family members who use iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple Watch SE, or Apple Watch Series 3 to track one another. However, the person being tracked has to agree to share their location with the tracker before the feature is enabled, per a separate Apple page.
However, tracking someone without their explicit consent is a crime, as Welsh found out. According to Brick House Security, it is generally illegal to use a GPS tracking device if someone is attempting to track their significant other in their car, which Welsh did. It is also illegal for someone to track a car that does not belong to the tracker while they do not have the legal right to do so.
Apple previously mentioned that it condemns in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of its products including stalking, According to its page on their update for the AirTag.
