Ask HN: Location privacy in a UltraWideBand device world?
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/04/kuo-airtags-ar-device-2021/ https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/5/22215381/tile-ultra-wide-band-tracker-apple-airtags-samsung-smartthings https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-announces-smartthings-find-powered-by-bluetooth-and-uwb/
Here is the Product (with anticompetitive platform concerns highlighted below)/Privacy question I have -
Will Apple expose the same location data that AirTags use to locate 3rd party trackers even if the network of iOS devices do not have the corresponding 3rd party app installed? Say for example I don't have a Tile device, but if my iPhone picks up UWB signals utilized by a Tile device (or any 3rd party UWB devices for that matter), am I part of the distributed UWB network that helps 3rd party UWB devices find their owners/provides and subsequently updates the device location?
Here's a scenario - what if a 3rd party product uses UWB signals and someone uses this device device to plant it on someone's car (to stalk them), leveraging the hundred million+ (and growing) iOS UWB capable network to update the location. This is a far more location tracking weapon then anything currently accessible to the public. How could the victim know, especially if its a 3rd party device?
But unless 3rd party integration includes access to the distributed 1+ Billion iOS devices with UWB, 3rd party integration with the 'Find My' app is useless - it's the same old Tile network. The real value is the increasing # of devices (in the 1 Billion+ iOS device pool) that support UWB, as iOS owners purchase new phones. If and how Apple opens up this distributed UWB network to 3rd parties is going to be very interesting.