A recent arrest of a man who secretly hid a tracking device in his wife’s car is highlighting how a reportedly common practice among people who distrust their significant others is illegal in Guam. In fact, according to several states’ laws and well-documented cases throughout the nation, the ease in purchasing and concealing tracking devices in the digital age has given rise to cyberstalking statutes. These statutes make it a felony to use a device like an Apple AirTag to secretly track the whereabouts of another person.
Guam does not have a cyberstalking statute specific to the use of devices to illegally track another person, but existing law already makes it a felony to “willfully and repeatedly” follow a person without that person’s knowledge. The Guam man arrested this past week for allegedly using the AirTag he concealed in her car to discover whether his estranged wife was having an affair with another man might be the first to test the law’s application to these digital devices.
“On December 6, 2024 around 11:00 a.m., [the victim] went to the Guam Police DART office in Tiyan to report that she had discovered an Apple AirTag placed surreptitiously within her vehicle,” a magistrates complaint against her husband in the Superior Court of Guam states. “The victim told police that she suspected her husband, [name redacted], to have placed the AirTag because they have been having marital
problems and [the husband] has not been responding well.”
She told police of several instances when her husband would call her, asking why she was at certain places. He would tell her friends saw her at these places, according to the report.
“The victim also reported that [he] went into her place of work and told her manager that she had been unfaithful to him,” the report states. “The victim noted that his jealous behavior and knowledge of where she was at all times led her to conclude that he was responsible for placing the AirTag.”
When the victim took the police detective to her car, both noticed a BMW in the Guam Police Department parking lot drive off when the detective approached it. She told the detective she believed that was her husband. The same BMW came into the parking lot three time while she was there.
Police contacted her husband, he agreed to be interviewed, and he admitted to placing the AirTag in her car a year ago. He said he did it in case her car was stolen.
“When Detective Kevin Marquez asked [him] why he had gone to the DART office several times while
the victim was also there, [he] denied that he had been there several times and stated that he was only there once at the same time as the victim,” the report states. “His reason was that the victim’s friend, another GPD officer, was in the victim’s vehicle with her and [he] wanted to know what they were doing. [He] recounted another time that he had gone to his wife’s location, about a year ago, when he had seen her in her vehicle with another man. [He] stated that he parked just outside the compound so that ‘(his) wife and [name redacted] (the other man) could see (his) vehicle.’ He left the location, then returned to speak with the man after the victim had left.”
He wrote in a statement, “l don’t harm my wife by tracking my Air Tags in our vehicles.”
Police arrested him, and he was confined to the Department of Corrections. He faces stalking and harassment charges that can send him to prison for years.
In December 2022, 38 Americans filed a class action suit against Apple, the maker of AirTag, over the ease with which their device is used to stalk people. Since then, Apple has modified its tracking software to notify its phone users whenever an AirTag is tracking them.
