Unable to Share AirTag

If truly interested, we could delve into the privacy and technical considerations behind “why” …

… but suffice to say, that any AirTag is locatable ONLY by using FindMy on the Trusted Devices of the paired AppleID.

It’s location can’t be “shared” w/ other AppleIDs.

For more detail; see these articles:

Find My security – Apple Support (AU)

and

Using Find My to locate missing Apple devices – Apple Support (AU)

Ok … read the articles.

It’s all about hiding the identity of the “annonomous participants” in the locating process.

It starts w/ the Airtag; has no clue as to where it is and very little ability to communicate.

It sends a beacon only intermittantly to save power.

The beacon is received by anyone/everyone in range … but they don’t know - and can’t discover - who the Airtag belongs to.

These “anyones/everyones” forward the AirTag’s ID and their own location to Apple encrypted w/ the AirTag’s public key.

All of this encrypted data goes into a “Big Apple FindMy Pot” but Apple can’t read ANY of the identity or locating info. (Apple can’t inadvertently compromise “data” they never have)

Now YOUR devices know the ID of your tag as well as the date/time.

They essentially reach in to Apple’s pot and pull out data which might be yours.

FindMy then - on your device - successfully decrypts only YOUR tag’s info w/ your PRIVATE key - which resides ONLY on your device. (it’s transferred during the initial pairing process)

Now, you have no way of knowing WHO reported the tag’s location, only that “someone” did.

So, since all “locating” relies on decrypting data with a private key which resides ONLY on your devices, only YOU can see the location.

Of course it was a “business decision” … EVERYTHING is.

Any decision-making was undoubtedly also heavily influenced by privacy concerns.

Sharing private keys is pretty problematic; but there are no doubt other alternatives possible for secure sharing between cooperating users.

But we’re just guessing at hypotheticals w/o any real basis for doing so.

The inability to share is def a First World problem.

It wasn’t “some random” internet article - it was Apple’s best publicly-available reference describing how how the AirTags work.

There’s no need for it to be be restated in “my own words” — although it WAS significantly expanded at the OPs request 2 posts down — when a high-quality, eminently-readable, Apple-published document already provides an authoritative explanation.

However, it’s now somewhat OBE with the “Sharing” feature in iOS 17. (Any initial roll-out “growing pains” notwithstanding)

(This capability was no doubt enabled by the mostly “behind the scenes” cryptographic architectural advances Apple has been rolling-out in their OSs of late)

I was promised that I’d be able to share my AirTags once I upgraded to iOS 17, but when I try, no matter who I select, I get the message

Unable to share AirTag

(person) is not eligible for sharing.

OK

There is nothing to say that the other person has to have iOS 17, but is that the case? Everyone has to buy new phones? I mean, come on, Apple.

it's likely by design, likely related to all the stalking and social control concerns their airpods have gotten

This is a user forum, you are not addressing apple here just fellow users

so the best you can get here is guesswork

you can try contacting apple Support ->  Get Support (apple.com) / Contact - Official Apple

Support

and or give them feedback -> Product Feedback - Apple

It does not really matter whether we agree with you or not, Apple is the decision maker here.

We can debate on what Apple could do, and even if they could do it whether they should do it, but the conversation will go nowhere useful as long as we are dealing with hypotheticals....and Apple is not participating in the discussion.

There is only so much that we can accomplish on a user-to-user forum.

We had the same issue. One of our devices (phones) had the FindMy settings messed up. Once the settings were exactly as the AirTag owners, we were then able to share. If you set the settings exactly the same as the AirTag owner and you still have an issue, look into the Screen Time settings. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff you can mess up with the Screen Time settings on. Good luck

Chattanooga guy,

You never explain the WHY. Don’t just tell people to read some random article. answer the question or else just observe.

i agree: it makes total sense to let my wife and I both track our dog. But only allows my phone to do so; not hers. Is there something obvious that we’re missing?

Good news, Apple released a feature with IOS17 in June 2023 that allows sharing of Airtags.