Where Is My Tag? Unveiling Alternative Uses of the Apple FindMy Service

Abstract

Bluetooth trackers, or tags, have quickly become ubiquitous and widely supported by multiple vendors. Beyond their original design of finding lost objects, these devices have the ability to extend the capabilities of current wireless smart devices. Since its launch in 2019, Apple’s FindMy enables any devices from their brand to be easily tracked by more than 1 billion active iPhones and iPads on the market. While convenient, these systems may even serve further uses, including as a result of this work, crowd sensing and a side channel for mobile communication. But they also raise privacy concerns for their users. In this paper, we demonstrate how Apple FindMy can be used as a privacy-friendly tool for crowd monitoring, and how it may inadvertently leak information on a person’s location in case of deliberate tracking. Additionally, we design and evaluate a proof of concept protocol, using the Apple FindMy and a crafted tag using a simple microcontroller. We show how such system could be used to transmit information at very low bit rates, while the devices transporting the information remain unaware of this covert channel, yielding an out of band communication channel.