By Steven Symes 
Colorado has struggled with high car theft rates, particularly in the Denver metro area, so one police department is handing out Apple AirTags and Tile Trackers to citizens. The idea is people put the cheap tracking devices in their vehicles so if they’re stolen, police can find them quickly.
Apple AirTag shows the owner the far away place his stolen car ended up.
We’ve seen other law enforcement agencies do this sort of thing, as well as hand out steering wheel locks and other simple theft prevention equipment. But the big question is just how much are car theft rates impacted by these sorts of efforts.
There are many stories of vehicle owners recovering their stolen ride in just a few hours after it’s stolen, all thanks to the AirTag they hid inside. After all, a lot of times thieves will park a car in a public place for a few days just in case there’s a GPS tracker hidden in it, rather than take it to their place or a chop shop, leading cops to them.
These are of course anecdotal, and we haven’t seen a study that focuses on the statistical impact of police giving away trackers. That’s not to say we don’t like the idea, because anything that cuts down on car thefts is a good thing in our book.
But we wonder how many people who get the free stuff actually use it, and do they use it properly? A tracker like an AirTag or Tile is simple enough, but you do have to put a little effort into getting it set up, so we’d hope people would do that.
In its report on the effort, CBS Colorado shows Arvada Police Department also handed out stickers to put in car windows warning out the tracker being present. We think that’s a bad idea because then thieves know what they’re dealing with, instead of keeping them guessing and on their toes.
Image via Apple
Shawn Henry 
Eve