> Stalking is already illegal, so why are the tags crippled in the first place?
I assume because it's a network that relies on its reputation among participating nodes to trust it will not be used to track them involuntarily, else they would opt out and collapse the network.
Turning this off doesn't necessarily stop your phone from participating in the "Find My" network, it just prevents your items from being seen. Your phone will continue to relay BLE/UWB traffic for others, and run down your battery more quickly.
Turning off Bluetooth seems to disable the traffic, but then you can no longer access your local Bluetooth devices.
This is wild, but it seems correct, none of the documentation I can find mentions opting out as a sensor that will pass data to Apple. On the other hand, on my Mac no apps are granted access to Location Services, which includes Find My. I don't have an iOS device but it seems like maybe you'd have similarly granular control?
If they are forcing you to transmit data, then it might make even more sense that Apple would steer clear of usage that could create liability for their users.
On a related topic, I've opted out of Google's BLE tracking/repeating feature. Apple provides no way to do this. The extra battery drain is significant and measurable, and I did not sign up for this when I purchased my devices.
https://support.google.com/android/thread/284190689/how-to-o...