New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a plan to tackle inflate motorcar stealing rate by encouraging gondola owners to habituate AirTags to protect their vehicles . To tolerate the initiative , 500 of the $ 29 gadget will be given out for free , funded by a nonprofit group called the Association for a Better New York .
The announcement , as first report byCBS New York , comes in response to a spate of larceny in the Bronx , particularly affecting Hyundai and Kia vehicles . The innocent AirTags will be given out in the Castle Hill , Soundview , and Parkchester neighborhoods , where thefts have rise by 548 percent twelvemonth on twelvemonth .
The 21st hundred calls for twenty-first century policing . AirTags in your car will help us reclaim your vehicle if it ’s stolen . We ’ll utilise our drones , our StarChase technology & respectable former style police work to safely recuperate your stolen cable car . facilitate us help you , get an AirTag.#GSDpic.twitter.com / fTfk8p4lye
The sudden rise appear to be relate to the discovery of a proficient flaw with certain car mannikin . If a stealer removes a plastic piston chamber , a phone charger can be used to jumpstart the vehicle , and TikTok video have been made showing how this works . ( Hyundai responded to the story by releasing a statement detail its “ comprehensive action ” to protect customer , and this can be register in full in CBS ’s article . )
AirTags are plan to be attached to objects of value , and can then track their location in real - time and report this to a paired iPhone or other Apple gimmick . Many owners place them inside wallet or attach them to keyrings , and some even buy limited AirTag - ready shoe collar for their favorite so they can see where they ’ve go . But the use of AirTags to cut through cars , as consistent as this seems , is more often advertise from the other side of the coin : as a putz used by stalker and other outlaw totrack their victim .
Indeed a figure of such cases prompted Apple to carry out anti - stalking software package updates to alert victims that they were being cut through without their consent . As valuable and necessary as these meter were , there were concerns that they might neuter the potency of AirTags at tackling theft . ( As Iwrote at the time , “ If we want to pick up the stealer we imperil the stalking victim ; if we want to protect the haunt victim we allow the thief to escape . ” ) The NYPD appear not to share these headache .
