All your proposals ignore the fact that someone with electronic design skills can whip up a GPS tracker that is outside of this system.
You would have to regulate this at the integrated circuit supplier level.
Oops, China; good luck.
Note that a tracking device does not have to transmit any information in real time. Suppose someone wants to find out where you live. If they know that they will run into you again somewhere they could stick a device onto you that just records your movements into flash storage. Then next time they run into you, they retrieve it somehow over some close range wireless or maybe physically. Such a device won't be detected by the presence of signals: it doesn't connect to any mobile network or Wi-Fi or anything.
Or, such a device could just sporadically connect to a network to send a small packet of information, e.g. once every few days.
> All your proposals ignore the fact that someone with electronic design skills can whip up a GPS tracker that is outside of this system.
I don't know. Why AirTag work for a year by a CR2032 is because usually it only uses BLE to connect near Apple devices. GPS+LTE tracker drains much battery so it can't be practically run on CR2032. Only Apple (or Google) make it very usable this kind of device.
I totally acknowledge that. They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian measures.
I don't even think you have to go to China. Any sufficiently motivated person can strap a GPS hat on a Raspberry Pi and make their own tracker, or do the same out of pedestrian electronic parts.
My goal is merely to try to drastically cut down on the more casual "I'd pay $20 to track my wife/SO/friend/whatever" style stalking that AirTags and the like enable, as well as giving victims an easier recourse in the event that a more knowledgeable or motivated adversary targets them. Tracking someone without their knowledge would give a restraining order, and tracking them after that would violate the restraining order which is a crime in all states afaik, and a felony in some of them. It won't outright stop people, but it at least gives victims some teeth to fight back with.
> They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian measures.
It boils down to the age old question about why make regulations that only ever effect people who are law abiding to begin with. Which isn't an argument against all regulation, but more of a question about what regulation actually hits the desired goal.
Right now any actually nefarious stalker will just get the $25 GPS tracker, put a decent battery on it, and stick it to the bottom of the car. They're not going to use an AirTag that is easily traced back to them and stands a good chance of notifying their target of the tracking. The kinds of stalkers who use AirTags are the low effort losers.
You would have to regulate this at the integrated circuit supplier level.
Oops, China; good luck.
Note that a tracking device does not have to transmit any information in real time. Suppose someone wants to find out where you live. If they know that they will run into you again somewhere they could stick a device onto you that just records your movements into flash storage. Then next time they run into you, they retrieve it somehow over some close range wireless or maybe physically. Such a device won't be detected by the presence of signals: it doesn't connect to any mobile network or Wi-Fi or anything.
Or, such a device could just sporadically connect to a network to send a small packet of information, e.g. once every few days.