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Stalkers set loud in Germany full screen-Research always includes trackers. Authorities are often not prepared for cyberstalking – and lawyers warn of a loophole in the anti-stalking law.
Stalkers hide them in cars, hide them in jacket pockets, sew them into clothing or mount tracking devices in hairbrushes or children’s toys: trackers are increasingly being misused as stalking tools in Germany, too. like research of SWR-Investigative format full screen show.
New Bluetooth trackers such as Apple AirTags or Samsung Galaxy SmartTags have been available in Germany since 2021 for around 35 euros. They make it possible to track people from afar using a smartphone with little effort, down to the meter. “They’re very small, very cheap, and they’re easy to hide somewhere without the person being tracked noticing,” warns IT expert Hannah Pankow, who works for the A Team Against Digital Violence initiative and Counseling centers and women’s shelters on cyberstalking.
Manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung are now apparently aware of the risk of abuse and have introduced a number of anti-stalking features. Apple refers to demand from full screen to a statement from February 2022. The group condemns “every malicious use of our products in the strongest terms”. It also says AirTags has the “first proactive system to alert you to unwanted tracking”.
Samsung says that the company wants to ensure the safety of its customers with additional functions, for example the “Unknown Tag Search” function can find out whether a SmartTag is nearby. However, self-experiments by show that the precautions taken by the manufacturers are not always sufficient to warn against trackers full screen.
Challenge for the legislature
In 2021, the anti-stalking law was tightened to make it easier to prosecute stalking and cyberstalking. Since then, stalking has been punishable under Section 238 of the Criminal Code if the perpetrator repeatedly pursues, calls, harasses or threatens a person in a way that is likely to have a “significant” impact on their life.
Previously, it had to be proven that those affected were “seriously” restricted, for example by changing jobs or changing their place of residence. The law now also covers special forms of cyberstalking, such as monitoring with spy apps – but trackers such as Apple’s AirTags are not mentioned. These came onto the market in the same year that the law was changed.
The lawyers Lena Leffer from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Michelle Weber from the EBS University Wiesbaden have dealt intensively with the legal situation regarding stalking with AirTags and warn of a legal loophole. “The specific case of stalking with AirTags was not taken into account because the legislature only saw the case in which a victim’s device was infiltrated,” says Weber.
When tracking with AirTags and Co., stalkers do not have to gain access to other people’s smartphones by installing a spy app or spying out passwords – they simply slip their tracker to those affected. “The main thing now is to draw attention to the problem, because this phenomenon will become more common,” the lawyers warn.
“Approximately need for action” test
The Federal Ministry of Justice currently sees no need for action: decisions by courts on AirTags and comparable products are “not yet known”, it says full screen-Inquiry. If there are gaps in criminal liability in practice, the ministry will examine “any need for action”. The Federal Ministry of Justice does not currently see a legal loophole.
The Bavarian Ministry of Justice sees it very differently: it is urging that cases in which stalkers spy on their victims with GPS trackers or Bluetooth trackers such as AirTags must be recorded in a “legally secure” manner. “The anti-stalking rules urgently need to be further tightened,” says Bavarian Minister of Justice Georg Eisenreich (CSU). full screen-Inquiry. “The Federal Minister of Justice is called upon to adapt the law to the digital development.”
More and more cases of stalking
In 2022 alone, the Federal Criminal Police Office recorded 21,436 stalking reports across Germany. Although women and men experience stalking, women are affected much more often. Around 81 percent of the victims recorded are women. The ratio is reversed for the suspects, according to the BKA, around 82 percent are men.
According to the Munich I public prosecutor, there are always cases in which it is known that stalker use AirTags or other technical means. Last year, the Munich district court heard the case of a woman who discovered two AirTags in her daughter’s jackets and a tracker under her car seat, presumably from her ex-husband. The procedure was discontinued against conditions. The use of trackers is not recorded in police statistics.
Stalking experts such as Ravensburg police chief Uwe Stürmer point out the difficulty of identifying digital stalking: “I’m sure that there is an enormous dark field in the area of digital tracking, cyberstalking, which is also very, very difficult to shed light on , because in the end things are a bit fleeting,” says Stürmer in an interview with full screen. “We often cannot determine how perpetrators manage to find out what time the victim is where.”
auxiliary facilities overburdened
But aid organizations are increasingly confronted with cases in which victims of stalking and physical violence are spied on with trackers – and they are often overwhelmed. “The problem is that the counseling centers and women’s shelters often don’t have the knowledge, the expertise or the capacities to be able to really give much advice on digital violence,” says IT expert Pankow.
The association Frauenhauskoordination (FHK) demands from the federal and state governments “needs-based financing of women’s shelters and specialist advice centers for advice on digital violence and training on digital violence in the police and judiciary”.
In view of the new technical possibilities for stalking, those responsible for women’s shelters believe that they need their own experts on digital violence. “We’re careful with the cuddly toys for the children, because we see again and again that cuddly toys have an AirTag built into them – and sometimes they have plastic noses, but they’re a camera,” observes Claudia Onion from the women’s shelter in Singen on Lake Constance.
She has been working in the women’s shelter for 20 years. In the past, those affected were protected as soon as they managed to escape to the women’s shelter: “Now the digital violence just goes on 24/7,” says Onion.