The Wiretap: Apple AirPods Location Tracking Helps Cops Chase Suspected Government Property Thieves

Between November 2022 and May this year, thieves broke into a number of vehicles and government buildings in Olympic National Park, Washington. Amongst the items stolen were thousands of dollars worth of National Park Service laptops and radios, as well as personal items belonging to visitors to the area. The latter included a pair of Apple AirPods, the location tracking features of which proved to be useful to law enforcement, according to a National Park Service investigation.

In early May, the AirPods owner locked the headphones and was soon alerted when they reported back a precise GPS location, according to a search warrant reviewed by Forbes. That location matched with a sighting of a vehicle used by the suspected perpetrators–two individuals who had been previously interviewed by park rangers after they were seen with gas canisters that looked similar to those stolen from the National Park Service, according to the warrant. Lacking any further evidence, no arrests were made at the time.

But a week later, the AirPods owner informed the cops that the headphones had moved to a street in Port Angeles, Washington. It was another match: the suspects previously told officers they were planning to store some of their camping equipment at an address on that street after leaving the park.

Neither suspect has been charged, but the case shows how a little-known location tracking feature in Apple’s AirPods can be used to find a suspect and, potentially, incriminate them. In recent years, Apple’s Find My iPhone and Airtag technologies have proven helpful to police monitoring the movements of suspects. With many tech manufacturers making GPS-enabled products, all can now expect their tools to be put to use by cops looking into bigger cases than a missing pair of headphones.

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