AirTag Silencer pulled after critics warn it could hide stalkers

The AirTag Silencer was a small add-on that physically destroyed the speaker inside an AirTag while leaving its tracking functions working. Elevation Lab, a Portland company known for Apple accessories, announced it on September 30 for $9.99, and its product page said one unit worked on several AirTags.

The pitch was aimed at cyclists. If you hide an AirTag inside an expensive bike, a thief might hear it chirp, find it and throw it away before you can track the bike down. Elevation Lab’s own team said they wanted it for their bikes, adding that some of them own bikes worth more than their cars.

That problem is real. An AirTag that makes noise is easier for a deliberate thief to find, which makes it less useful for recovering stolen property. But the same silence that hides a tracker from a bike thief also hides it from a person who has had one slipped into a bag, coat or car.

The backlash started with Glenn Fleishman, a writer at Six Colors, who published a long critique of the product and called it “appalling.” Privacy advocates, including Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, made the same point: a consumer product designed to defeat a safety feature should not exist, whatever the seller meant it for.

When Fleishman questioned the company, Elevation Lab CEO Casey Hopkins argued that people can already silence AirTags on their own and that phones will still warn people when an unknown AirTag travels with them. Critics answered that those phone alerts depend on owning a compatible device with the right settings switched on. The speaker is the backup that works for anyone within earshot.

Some Apple news sites refused to cover the launch at all, saying they did not want to give publicity to an accessory that removed an anti-stalking protection.

Elevation Lab reversed course in mid-October and emailed customers to say the Silencer was no longer for sale. Its note conceded that a silenced tracker could be used against a person who never sees a phone alert.

The company also made an unusual promise. It holds a patent on the design and says it will use that patent to stop anyone else from making the same kind of product. In other words, it plans to turn its own invention into a barrier against copycats.

Two loose ends remain. The listing vanished from Amazon, but the product’s name still showed up as a search suggestion there for a while after it was pulled. And there is no public sign yet of how, or whether, Elevation Lab will actually enforce that patent against other sellers.

AirTags launched in 2021 and quickly drew criticism for making it easy to track people secretly. Apple has added safety features several times since then. The second-generation AirTag 2 has a louder speaker and stronger adhesive that makes the speaker harder to pull out, a change aimed squarely at tampering.

Today there are two layers of protection. First, if an AirTag that is away from its owner is seen moving with you over time, a compatible iPhone or iPad shows an “AirTag Found Moving With You” alert, along with a map of where it was spotted near you. Apple and Google also built a shared industry standard so Android phones can get similar warnings about Bluetooth trackers.

Second, the AirTag itself plays a sound when it has been separated from its owner and is moving. That sound reaches anyone nearby, with or without a smartphone. The Silencer targeted exactly this second layer, which is why critics saw it as so risky.

The Silencer is gone, but silenced or tampered AirTags may still be out there, so it is smart not to rely on hearing a chirp. Phone alerts are your main defense, and they only work if your settings allow them.

On an iPhone or iPad, Apple says you should do the following to receive tracking alerts:

• Update to iOS 17.5 or iPadOS 17.5 or later, which adds alerts for non-Apple trackers that follow the shared standard.
• Keep Bluetooth on and Airplane Mode off, since alerts can’t arrive in Airplane Mode.
• Turn on Location Services, and under System Services turn on Significant Locations so you are warned when you get home.
• Check that Tracking Notifications are allowed in the Notifications section of Settings.

If you get an alert, open it to see the map and play a sound on the item if you can. Apple says using these trackers to follow people without consent is a crime in many countries, and that police can request information from Apple during an investigation. If you feel unsafe, contact local law enforcement.