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ElevationLab pulls AirTag Silencer after backlash over stalking concerns

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ElevationLab pulls AirTag Silencer after backlash over stalking concerns

Following intense criticism over the obvious fact that its AirTag Silencer could facilitate stalking and other forms of misuse of Apple’s AirTag, ElevationLab has now pulled the accessory. Here are the details.

A couple of weeks ago, Glenn Fleishman wrote a lengthy post over at Six Colors criticizing ElevationLab’s AirTag Silencer, which does pretty much what it says on the label.

Equipped with a piercing mechanism intended to neutralize the AirTag’s speaker without damaging the rest of the hardware, the accessory was announced on September 30 for $9.99.

Yesterday, as Fleishman noted in a new post on Six Colors, ElevationLab announced its decision to remove the product from sale, in a brief note acknowledging the obvious opportunity for misuse the accessory afforded.

We launched an AirTag silencing tool recently. We have always made products we want for ourselves, and this was no different – we wanted it for AirTags on our bikes. (Some of us here have bikes more valuable than our cars.)

In retrospect though, this also has the side effect of aiding someone with bad intentions to track someone that wouldn’t get phone notifications.

We have removed the product and will use our patent on it to prevent anyone else from making one in the future.

The product is also no longer listed on Amazon, although it still appears as an autocomplete suggestion in search results.

It is worth noting that the now-pulled product information page for ElevationLab’s AirTag Silencer noted that it worked “on multiple AirTags.”


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