Chipolo ONE

Chipolo’s little Bluetooth trackers -- the ONE and the ONE Spot help users track lost stuff. The ONE Spot works on Apple’s huge Find My network, which is great if you’ve lost something out of Bluetooth range. The biggest concern with the Apple ‘s own Airtag trackers that work on their Find My network when they came out earlier in 2021 was whether they could be abused for stalking. Apple took steps to mitigate these concerns, by shortening the time an Airtag will sound an alert when separated from its owner from 3 days down to 8-24 hours. They also promised an Android app to allow Android phones to received alerts too. These are all good, if imperfect, steps forward. And while Chipolo does say they have unwanted tracking protection, unfortunately it looks like Chipolo hasn’t made the same updates to their ONE Spot trackers Apple made to their Airtags to strengthen these protections. In part because it would require a firmware update to the tracking device and Chipolo told us their latest trackers do not have a firmware update mechanism. This is a big concern for a device that could track users just about anywhere in the world on Apple’s Find My network of millions of phones and iPads.

When it comes to privacy, Chipolo says they may share some of your personal information, including name and device IDs with third parties like Google and Facebook for advertising purposes. They also say they may use your location information to provide you with personalized offers with your explicit consent. All in all, Chipolo’s privacy practices aren’t terrible, they also aren’t as strong as the privacy practices Apple uses for their Airtag trackers. Apple also uses stronger encryption to protect your location data.

What’s the worst that could go wrong with Chipolo’s trackers? Well, because we can’t confirm they have implemented the same stronger anti-stalking measures that Apple Airtags have to help protect users from unwanted tracking on Apple’s huge Find My network, we’re concerned the Chipolo ONE Spot tracker could be used to stalk an unsuspecting person, putting them in danger. This is the scary reality of our world with small, cheap tracking devices tied into a network of millions of connected devices. We hope Chipolo figures out how to better protect their user’s from stalking soon.