Mum defends decision to track her children with Apple AirTags

A mum has defended her decision to track her own children with Apple AirTags after some people told her they thought it was a bad idea.

If you haven't heard of Apple AirTags by now they're a little technological tracking device which you can put on something and keep tabs on with an app on your phone.

North Carolina mum Vada Stevens took to TikTok to explain how she was using the devices and said it was worth being called 'crazy' as long as she could keep her kids safe.

She said she'd seen a video of another mum giving her children AirTags and thought it was 'the coolest thing', and in her own footage she showed her kids running around with the devices.

The mum also said you could 'train your kids to come when they hear the beeping noise' and showed her children returning to her after they heard a beeping noise.

TikTok/@stevensfam

Some parents have disagreed with this approach, commenting on her video that they didn't like the way she was doing things.

"She said 'train' instead of 'teach'," one person noted, as Stevens had captioned her TikTok 'today we are dog training' and said 'train your kids' in the video.

Another who disapproved of this method said 'they're not dogs WTF', while a third simply stated 'this is sad'.

Someone else said the idea was 'giving shock collar vibes' but there were other parents who thought it was something worth considering.

One parent said they put AirTags in their daughter's clothes so people couldn't see them but they could keep track of her.

Stevens had told Today she was 'extremely paranoid about everything' and said if anything happened she'd want to be able to check the AirTags and know where her kids were right away.

Even if it's something as simple as her two-year-old daughter getting distracted and wandering off out of curiosity she would rather be safe than sorry.

TikTok/@stevensfam

Initially marketed as a way to keep track of things like keys and other precious items, people have been using the Apple devices to follow others too and worryingly it's often been done without the person's consent.

People have said they've been stalked by AirTags which have been placed on them and only realised much later after getting a phone notification that an 'unknown accessory' had been moving around with them for a while.

Just as the person who owns the AirTag can track it on their phone, so too can the person being tracked be told that a device is following them if one has been going around with them for long enough.

People have been going about their normal lives when they've had a message ping on their phones to tell them there is a device somewhere nearby that goes everywhere they do.

It can be a pretty chilling experience to be told that someone's planted a tracking device on you and has been keeping tabs on your location, with some people finding the AirTags hidden on their cars so a stalker knows when you're in our out of your house.