Family fishes out unexpected AirTag in child's pocket at Tennessee Aquarium

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WTVC) — The mother of a child who recently visited the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga has filed a report after what the child reportedly found in his pocket.

It was an Apple AirTag.

The AirTags are designed to act as a key finder, which helps people find personal objects but there are concerns the devices are being used for more nefarious purposes, like human trafficking.

Rhonda Rowland of Ranger in Gordon County, Georgia posted about the incident on Facebook, and the post started getting widely shared:

What was a great day turned into something that could have become a nightmare. Continue reading. I went to the Tennessee Aquarium today for my grandsons birthday. There were 10 of us. 5 adults and 5 grandkids. It was truly a blast and the grandkids had the best time. I had to leave a little earlier because one grandkid got sick and needed to go home. About 30 minutes after leaving my daughter calls to tell me that one of my grandkids found an air tag in his pocket!" Roland wrote. "Thank goodness he's the kid that always knows what he has because he's a collector of everything. For those that do not know what an air tag is, it is a device that can track you. Child preditors use them to find where children live. My daughter took it to security. A police report was made and security is looking at their security cameras. If my grandson would have made it home with this tracker in his pocket, the preditor would know where he lives, which makes him an east target to pick up later. This was a scary event with a good outcome for my grandsons. I just wonder how many more kids ended up with one in their pocket and made it home with it. The staff and security at the aquarium took thus very serious. They also felt terrible that this happened and gave them a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium. Please check your kids pockets before leaving public spaces.

Roland later shared photos of the device:

Rhonda Roland said she and her daughter Haley Cannon feared the AirTag was dropped in the child's pocket with bad intentions.

"My nephew just pulls this thing out of his pocket, and he goes, 'oh, what's this?'"

Roland said the kids were excited and she was doing her best to keep up.

"He was standing there reading it. He was looking and then he was moving to the next. You had to be quick to keep your eye on him," Roland says.

Thom Benson, communications manager at the aquarium, said security footage and CPD's real-time intelligence cameras confirmed no one had contact with the child.

"We wanted to deal with it as quickly as possible. The AirTag was confiscated so it could be taken into the CPD property room, and they are continuing to investigate," Benson says.

Roland's post on Facebook has been shared thousands of times, with many parents questioning how likely this is to happen.

We asked a cyber security expert about those concerns.

"I would always err on the side of caution, file the report, take it to the police department, say, 'hey, this was not expected,' and if they can pull the serial number, do something with it."

Ernest Staats with Network Paladin says AirTags can be used to keep track of your own children or belongings.

But...

"The bad side is then people that are trying to stalk someone or possibly kidnap them, they'll put it on them and they'll just follow them."

Staats says you can disable an unknown AirTag.

"There are apps that you can scan for them, and once you find them, to me, I'm going to open them up and remove the battery and just stop the tracking," Staats says.

Apple provides more AirTag safety tips here.

You can also read the step-by-step privacy and security setting instructions provided by Network Paladin below: