Apple's Personal User Safety Guide attempts to ease AirTag concerns

By Malcolm Owen

Apple has produced a new Personal Safety User Guide, explaining how its customers can keep themselves and their personal data safe while using AirTags, iPhones, and other products.

Apple has a history of being proactive when it comes to privacy and security. In its latest website update on Tuesday, Apple is attempting to further educate its users on what it does for security, and how they can use the available features to protect themselves.

The Personal Safety User Guide for Apple Devices is a resource for "anyone who is concerned about or experiencing technology-enabled abuse, stalking, or harassment." The guide says it can help users "sever digital ties with those you no longer want to be connected to, as well as outlining safety features included within Apple's products.

The guide covers a number of areas, including instances where users may have given access to personal information to another person, or if someone has access to the user's devices or accounts and made changes without permission.

As well as digital security, the guide also covers location data-related elements, including the Find My app. It even covers how to quickly use Emergency SOS mode in applicable devices, and how to automatically tell a friend that the user arrived home safely.

Apple says it will be updating the guide on a regular basis. It adds that the instructions also apply primarily to hardware running the latest version of its operating systems, such as macOS 12.1, iOS 15.2, and iPadOS 15.2, with additional details also provided for other products.

The guide's publication follows after a number of reports about the AirTag anti-stalking feature, with users discovering they are being followed by AirTags hidden in vehicles. While working as intended, the notifications have led to numerous articles seemingly attacking Apple and AirTag, despite it actually helping victims in various ways.