A Florida mother was horrified to learn her son was being tracked using an Apple AirTag, but a police investigation revealed there was a simple and benign explanation.
Jackie Giulleo told WOFL-TV The family was alerted to the tracking device after attending the Satellite Beach Christmas Parade. Back at her house, her mother started receiving notifications from her phone that her AirTag tracker was nearby.
The tracker’s map on her phone appeared to be tracking her son Aidan.
“I go to a lot of places,” the 7-year-old told WOFL.
Giulleo was surprised by this discovery. Since she didn’t own an air tag, it was natural to think someone was tracking her son.
“It was every mother’s worst nightmare,” she said.
She searched through his toys and clothes, then inside the bubbles of his shoes, to find her tracker.
“When I found it, I was really depressed. It was in my son’s shoe, so to be honest, my knees hurt,” Giulleo said.
It was in a small cavity cut into the foam. She accompanied her pursuers to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, filed a report, and police began an investigation. Police issued a subpoena to Apple to obtain the address of the AirTag’s owner, and then discovered the shoe’s real owner.
happy coincidence
It turns out Aidan accidentally replaced another boy’s shoes with his own when he took them off to enter the bounce house at the Christmas parade. Aidan said she remembers him noticing that another boy was wearing the exact same shoes as her.
“I think we just put them in the same place and then replaced them,” he said.
Another family in Oklahoma had trackers installed to track their children. Giulleo said she was surprised to learn that AirTags can be used to monitor people.
“We’ve never had AirTags,” she said. “I knew they had luggage and keys and things like that. As far as tracking the kids, I never thought of that.”
She said she was relieved that the account of the bizarre incident was innocent.
“Fortunately, it became a happy coincidence in the story of two mothers,” she added. “I was really lucky to have a happy ending.”
Here’s local news about the incident:
Do you like Blaze News? Avoid censorship and sign up for our newsletter to get articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. Please register here!
