Apple AirTags Allowed Abusive Husband to Stalk, Control Wife, Lawsuit Alleges

Wife says she obtained a protective order after discovering multiple tracking devices, receiving death threats and an incident in which her husband allegedly pushed their toddler son down the stairs.

A Washington state woman says the design of Apple AirTag Bluetooth tracking devices allowed her husband to stalk, terrorize and abuse her, allegedly due to design features the manufacturer was warned about, but chose to ignore for the sake of profits.

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Erica Kommuri in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on October 27, naming Apple Inc., the manufacturer of AirTag tracking devices, as the defendant.

Kommuri alleges her husband secretly placed AirTags in her child’s diaper bag and in vehicles to track her movements and monitor her whereabouts without her knowledge or consent. According to the lawsuit, he exploited features of the devices that allowed him to suppress the limited tracking notifications she might otherwise have received, enabling him to continue monitoring and controlling her.

Kommuri claims Apple’s defective AirTag design facilitated a pattern of domestic abuse that included sexual assaults, physical violence and threats against her life.

Apple AirTag Stalking Problems

The Apple AirTag is a coin-sized Bluetooth tracking device first put on the market in 2021. It was marketed as being able to help find lost keys and purses, using nearby Apple devices to triangulate its location and report that location to the user with extreme accuracy.

However, before sales began, security and domestic abuse experts warned the design was rife for abuse and could be used to track people without their knowledge. Apple acknowledged there were risks and then chose to sell them anyway, critics say.

Since then, the AirTag has been linked to rampant incidents of stalking, sexual assaults, violence, threats and anxiety. The devices are difficult to find and warning systems to alert individuals an AirTag is tracking them are complex and some say unreliable. Apple often cannot find, deactivate or even recognize the owners of devices being used to track others, detractors say.

Kommuri is just one of a growing number of individuals nationwide pursuing Apple AirTag lawsuits, frequently filed by women who say current or former romantic partners have used the devices to follow and terrorize them. Plaintiffs say Apple’s safety measures are virtually non-existent because the company made the choice to pursue profits off a device that clearly endangers consumers.

Apple AirTag Stalking Allegations

According to the complaint, Kommuri and her husband, Sai Kishore Kommuri, had two children together, and she had an adult daughter from a previous marriage. The husband works in upper-management at a cybersecurity and telecommunications company.

Kommuri says that, over the years, her husband became progressively more abusive, grabbing her, pushing her, and throwing everything from backpacks to televisions at her when enraged. She alleges he raped her, withheld money, confiscated her wallet, passport, driver’s license and bank cards, while claiming she had lost them herself.

The lawsuit indicates Kommuri’s husband promised her that he would turn her life into “a living hell” if she ever tried to leave.

This abuse was allegedly heavily enabled by his knowledge of cybersecurity and the use of AirTag devices. Not only does she claim he hid them in her car, diaper bags and other places to track her on three separate occasions, but he also had access to her iPhone and shut off notifications that she was being tracked without her knowledge.

When Kommuri discovered the tracking and confronted him during a trip, the lawsuit states he told her that he was “protecting his property.”

“On Plaintiff’s return the Husband abruptly became affectionate and proposed a family trip to a national park. Plaintiff, by then terrorized by months of violence and surveillance, concluded he intended to kill her on the trip. She wrote a letter to that effect and left it in a safe for her adult daughter to find if she did not return. She had, by this point, lost her will to live.”

– Erica Kommuri v. Apple Inc.

After the trip, the abuse escalated, she states, with her husband pushing their three-year-old son down a flight of stairs. When she threatened to throw him out, he threatened to murder her, the lawsuit indicates.

In October 2024, Kommuri filed a domestic violence protection order. The next month, the Court ruled that her husband represented a credible threat to her safety. Including an order for him to stay at least 1,000 feet from Kommuri at all times, the court also expressly prohibited him from tracking her physically or electronically.

The lawsuit claims Apple had a duty to notify someone being tracked as soon as an AirTag is detected, which would have alerted her to the problem before her husband could cover his tracks. Kommuri accuses the manufacturer of intentionally and knowingly putting women at increased risk of domestic abuse in order to improve its profit margins.

Kommuri presents claims of design defect, failure to warn, violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act (CPA) and common law negligence. She seeks both punitive and compensatory damages.

Apple AirTag Lawsuits

The complaint came just a couple weeks after the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) ordered all federal Apple AirTag lawsuits consolidated in the Northern District of California before U.S. District Judge Noël Wise for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As the parties continue to seek a non-trial resolution for the litigation, Judge Wise is expected to have attorneys select several representative cases for use as bellwether trials to gauge how juries interpret evidence and testimony likely to be frequently cited during the litigation.

In the interim, Apple AirTag lawyers continue to investigate potential claims nationwide involving individuals who say the tracking devices were used to facilitate:

• Stalking
• Harassment
• Domestic violence
• Other criminal activity

Individuals who think they may qualify to file an AirTag lawsuit can speak with a lawyer about their potential claim at no upfront cost. Attorneys handle these cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning legal fees are only paid if compensation is recovered.

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