While a court document states that Apple was originally sued back In May 2022 regarding AirTags, the amended lawsuit claims that the initial complaint was actually filed in December 2022, supported by an NPR report dated December 7, 2022. The amended lawsuit that carries 10-counts as presented below was filed on October 6, 2023.  

• Negligence
• Strict Liability- Design Defect
• (Consumer Expectation Test)
• Strict Liability-Design Defect (Risk-
• Benefit Test)
• Unjust Enrichment
• Intrusion Upon Seclusion
• Violations of California’s Constitutional
• Right to Privacy
• Violations of CIPA, Cal. Pen. Code §§
• 630, et seq.
• Negligence Per Se
• Violations of UCL’s Unlawful Prong,
• Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200, et seq.
• Violations of UCL’s Unfair Prong, Cal.

Court Document Introduction

Each year, an estimated 13.5 million people are victims of stalking in the United States, with nearly one in three women and one in six men experiencing stalking at some point in their lifetime.

Stalking can manifest in a host of ways, most often through unwanted and repeated behaviors such as phone calls, texts, visits, gifts, internet posts, or any other series of acts that would cause fear in a reasonable person. Regardless of the acts the stalker employs, the common theme of stalking behavior is the fear elicited in the victim.

This fear undermines and erodes a victim’s autonomy and drastically disrupts their day-to-day life. One in eight employed stalking victims miss time from work because of their victimization and more than half lose more than five days of work.2 One in seven stalking victims move as a result of their victimization.3 Unsurprisingly, stalking victims suffer much higher rates of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and social dysfunction than people in the general population.

Technology has increased the tools available to a stalker, with burner phones or call blocking software providing anonymity, and free email services and social media platforms providing a limitless vector for harassing electronic messages and posts.

One of the most dangerous and frightening technologies employed by stalkers is the use of real-time location information to track victims. These technologies allow stalkers to follow their victims’ movements in real time and to undo any attempt on the part of the victim to evade or hide from the stalker. If one’s location is constantly being transmitted to an abuser, there is no place to run.

One of the products that has revolutionized the scope, breadth, and ease of location-based stalking is the Apple AirTag. Introduced in April 2021, this device is roughly the size of a quarter, and its sole purpose is to transmit its location to its owner.

What separates the AirTag from any competitor product is its unparalleled accuracy, ease of use (it fits seamlessly into Apple’s existing suite of products), and affordability. With a price point of just $29, it has become the weapon of choice of stalkers and abusers.

The AirTag works by emitting signals that are detected by Bluetooth sensors on the hundreds of millions of Apple products across the United States. These sensors comprise Apple’s “Find My” network. When a device on the network detects a signal from the missing device, it reports that missing device’s location back to Apple, which in turn reports it to the owner.

The ubiquity of Apple products, and their constituency in the Find My network, means that an AirTag can more reliably transmit location data than any competitor. Indeed, in all metropolitan areas, and even many rural areas, one is never more than 100 yards away from an Apple device. Thus, one is never more than 100 yards away from having location data transmitted back to Apple.

None of this came as a surprise to Apple. Prior to and upon the AirTags release, advocates and technologists urged the company to rethink the product and to consider its inevitable use in stalking. In response, Apple heedlessly forged ahead, dismissing concerns and pointing to mitigation features that it claimed rendered the devices “stalker proof.”

The concerns were well founded. Immediately after the AirTag’s release, and

consistently since, reports have proliferated of people finding AirTags placed in their purses, in or on their cars, and even sewn into the lining of their clothes, by stalkers in order to track their whereabouts. The consequences have been as severe as possible: multiple murders have occurred in which the murderer used an AirTag to track the victim. Similarly, individuals have been murdered—or murdered others—when using AirTags to track down stolen property and confront the thieves.

Its “stalker proof” protections exposed as totally inadequate, Apple has spent the last two-and-a-half years scrambling to address its failures in protecting people from unwanted, dangerous tracking. To date, most if not all, of these failures persist, and Apple continues to find itself in the position of reacting to the harms its product has unleashed, as opposed to prophylactically preventing those harms. As one commentator observed: “You wouldn't allow a car to come to mass-market without having vigorous testing, so why are we allowing smart tech to just be released and then fixing safety features later?”5

The effects are devastating. Finding a mysterious homing beacon hidden in your personal effects or your car is a terrifying experience. It forces an undeniable reckoning with the fact that someone—perhaps someone you know, perhaps not—is aware of your every move.

And this fear necessarily leads to another: what will happen if one’s stalker acts on this new information, showing up unannounced and unwanted with ill intent? What are the possible outcomes of being tracked without your knowledge or consent? The outcomes can be devastating.

Plaintiffs bring this action on behalf of themselves and a class and subclasses of individuals who have been and who are at risk of stalking via this dangerous product.

Apple’s acts and practices, as detailed further herein, amount to acts of negligence, negligence per se, intrusion-upon-seclusion, and product liability, constitute unjust enrichment, and violate California’s constitutional right to privacy, California's Invasion of Privacy Act, Cal. Pen. Code § 630, et seq. (“CIPA”), California’s Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, et seq. (“UCL”), Ind. Code § 24-5-0.5-1, et seq.; Md. Com. Law Code Ann. § 13-301, et seq.; New York General Business Law § 349; Ohio Code Ann. § 1345.01 et seq.; and 73 Pa. Con. Stat. § 201-1 et seq. Plaintiffs, in a representative capacity, seek statutory damages, actual damages, and punitive damages, as well as injunctive and declaratory relief against Apple, correcting Apple’s practice of releasing an unreasonably dangerous product into the stream of commerce, misrepresenting the harms associated therewith, and facilitating the unwanted and unconsented to location tracking of Plaintiffs and Class members.

For more details, read the Plaintiff's full complaint filed with the court in the SCRIBD document below, courtesy of Patently Apple.

9. Apple lawsuit 20626508-0--38419 by Jack Purcher on Scribd