[ibudiallo]

Ok, so I made these things called OttoTags in 2017. Think of them as AirTags with QR code instead (I'm a solo dev)

From what I understand, when you find an airtag, you connect it to your device and it gives you the owners contact info. Anyone can get your phone number.

When you find an ottotag, you scan it and you contact the owner through ottomon. From here the GPS location is captured and communicated. All interactions are done through the service (ottomon.net). This layer act as a security layer where we filter out spam and possibly stalkers based on past behavior and other heuristics.

The two parties can communicate without revealing any information about themselves. So yeah, Apple could have made it much simpler, but they are my competitors now so let's keep this between us.

Edit: For more info -> https://www.ottomon.net/blog/privately-communicate-on-ottomo...

[judge2020]

> Anyone can get your phone number.

If you put it in lost mode. Otherwise, it doesn't reveal the owner's phone number. It's assumed that clicking lost mode and putting a phone number means you expect to be called about that lost item.

[PurpleFoxy]

I have tested them. If you nfc scan one not in lost mode, it opens a page explaining what airtags are and shows you it’s serial number. If you put it in lost mode, scanning shows the same page but with a phone number and a lost message.

Being in lost mode will also give the owner a notification when it is found.

The airtags are also account locked the whole time and must be manually removed by the owner before someone else can use them.