Tag: domestic violence

Apple AirTag – one of the main item-location platforms that are supporting anti-stalking measures

Apple and Tile implement item-location platforms that are based around Bluetooth-driven locator tags that can be attached to the items that need to be located. They also work with software that “pings” these tags in order to locate them on a map or make them sound an audible signal so you can locate the object attached to them.

But some people use these tags for nefarious purposes. Typically this is about tracking people who don’t want to be tracked, typically as part of stalking or as part of abusive one-sided relationships.

But Apple and Tile have answered this problem through adding logic to their first-party mobile-platform to detect unknown or unrecognised Bluetooth trackers. It is based around the idea of a tracking device or tag that is not associatedd with your “universe” of mobile computing devices moving in the same direction as you or your mobile computing device.

In the case of Apple, this is built in to the iOS operating system and in to a first-party mobile-platform app for Android. This software identifies if the AirTag or other “Find My” device is moving with you that isn’t registered to your device or Apple ID and is separate from the registered user. As well, the AirTag makes a sound if it isn’t with its owner for a significant amount of time. It also has NFC to allow a person to use a suitably-equipped mobile platform device to identify whether the AirTag is lost, including how to contact the device’s owner and return it. This also yields instruction on how to disable the device by removing the coin-size battery.

With Tile, the software is part of their first-party companion mobile-platform app and identifies if the unknown Tile device is moving with you and separate from the registered user. But it requires that you use the mobile-platform app to instigate a “scan” process.

As well, Google has baked in to their Google Services update package for Android 6.0+ the necessary software code to detect unknown tracker devices that are following you. This includes the necessary user interface to warn you against unknown tracker devices following you and help you identify or disable these devices.

This is part of an Apple and Google initiative to establish an Internet Engineering Task Force draft specification that mandates particular anti-surveillance features in Bluetooth-driven item-location platforms that work with iOS or Android smartphones. It avoids the need for companies who want to build item-location platforms to design them responsibly without needing to reinvent the wheel.

What needs to happen to prevent covert surveillance with item-location platforms

Once the IETF specification regarding anti-surveillance features for item-location platforms is set in stone. there has to be some form of legal mandate regarding its implementation in computing platforms and computer-assisted item-location platforms. This could be through other international standards regarding radiocommunications and telecommunications devices or customs and other legislation and regulation regarding the trade in goods.

The anti-surveillance features in these item-location platform would need to be able to perform well within a crowded location especially where multiple devices of the same platform and owned by different owners are likely to be there. Think of, say a busy bar or nightclub where many people are likely to be moving around the venue.

Similarly, these features would need to work properly with situations where a passenger’s luggage is transported in the baggage hold of the same transport as its owner. This is because some passengers may use an AirTag or luggage with integrated item-finding technology in order to avoid losing their baggage.

The devices need to support universal platform-independent NFC “touch-and-go” technology to allow someone to identify lost tracking devices. This would then show up contact details about who own the device or how to return it to its owner. This is more so where a computing device that has or is connected to an NFC sensor but doesn’t run iOS or Android is used to identify the tracking device’s owner, something that would be common with laptop or 2-in-1 computers. Such a situation would come in to its own with a lost-and-found office who uses regular computers running desktop operating systems as their main office computer equipment.

As well, item-location devices should be easy to disable like removing the battery or enforcing a factory reset on the device. This would come in to its own if the device was being used to track someone and such a device was discovered by its target or someone assisting the target.

Let’s not forget that wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers, along with headphones and similar personal-audio devices are being equipped with location-tracking functionality. This is to allow people to locate lost smartwatches or earbuds or premises owners, lost-and-found offices and the like to return abandoned devices to their owners. Here, they would have to be part of an established platform and be subject to the same conditions as tag-style devices.

There could also be one or more innovation challenges for manufacturers of various third-party devices in one or more sectors that work to detect covert surveillance of people using item-location devices. Such devices like, perhaps, turnstile-type devices could be designed to provide augmented signalling of tracker devices unrelated to a user’s smartphone but moving with the user or their possessions.

Add to this education programs for third parties like IT support, the security sector, the social-work sector and similar groups to help staff work against covert surveillance of people they work with using item-location devices. This could be about assisting with locating and defeating unwanted devices or configuring users’ personal technology for privacy.

Similarly there has to be action taken about the sale of devices that are modified to avoid detection by the person who is being tailed. This is more so where there have been AirTags sold through online marketplaces like Etsy that have their speaker removed or disconnected to avoid audible “pinging” and detection by the stalking victim. Such action could be in the form of statutory action like radiocommunications regulations regarding such devices sold on the secondary market or customs regulation regarding devices that are imported or exported.

Conclusion

What I see of this effort by Apple and Google is a significant step towards responsible secure design of item-location platforms and an example of what responsible design is about.

Article

Microsoft Band App Provides Discreet Reporting For Domestic Violence  | SuperSite For Windows

Previous coverage on this topic

Doncare has launched a mobile-phone app to help people in domestic-violence situations

From the horse’s mouth

Band Aid

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My Comments

Previously, I had given some space to an iOS mobile-platform app written in conjunction with Doncare Community Services in Doncaster to provide domestic-violence survivors access to the necessary information. This app provide the one-stop information shop functionality but could be quickly deleted from a mobile device if the user is in danger of ending up in trouble for seeking help, which can happen in an abusive relationship.

For those of you who are based in the UK, this has recently become a cause celebre thanks to it being woven in to BBC’s “The Archers” radio serial which highlighted an abusive relationship that was taking place in to one of its storylines.

But another project has been finished where a wearable is used as a tool for summoning help in these situations.  This is in the form of “Band Aid” which is an app that works with the Microsoft Band to detect when the wearer is under undue stress and invite them to have the paired smartphone call the national emergency-services number or a user-determined help number like a trusted friend or domestic-violence helpline. The user can override the software to bypass stress-sensing during exercise or similar situations.

There is further development taking place with this software such as working alongside support and refuge centres for domestic and relationship violence sufferers. There is also some work taking place with “social listening” and machine-learning to identify the behaviour of one who is under threat.

The “Band Aid” project has been developed as part of the “HackForHer” hackathon which is a programming challenge for software solutions that can help and enable women. Here, these kind of hackathons can flesh out ways that technology can help particular user groups in particular situations.

Personally, I would like to see this program be “taken further” to facilitate help in other situations like independent ageing (fall detection), living with chronic illnesses with a high fall risk like diabetes or epilepsy, or living with mental illnesses. The sensors in wearables like the Microsoft Band, the Apple Watch and the Android Wear smartwatches are able to monitor body signs along with the wearable’s gyroscope sensor being able to detect falls and similar situations while machine learning that is part of the software can identify what is normal compared to what is abnormal.

Here, it could detect if one is about to have a diabetic coma or epileptic seizure, or needs help because they as an old person fell. Having this kind of software work with the “Internet Of Everything” can work well for identifying risk-taking behaviour such as a person who is living alone not entering the kitchen to feed themselves or making sure that a person has taken medicines that they have to take.

What is happening is that it is the first time devices in the platform wearables or Internet-Of-Things class, along with the concept of machine learning, are being exploited as a personal-welfare device rather than as a wellness or “keep-fit” device. Here, this avoids the need to wear extra clutter to achieve a goal of ideal personal safety or health.