FindMy Location Reporting
Recent versions of iOS/iPadOS have a little known enhancement to FindMy. When configured to participate in Apple's FindMy "Network", a device will continue to be detectable by other Apple devices that themselves are configured to use the FindMy Network feature.
Settings > [Your Name / AppleID] > Find My > Find My iPad > Find My Network - set to ON
Where this setting is both available and has been enabled, a device that lacks a network connection - or has been powered off - will silently continue to advertise is presence to nearby devices using its BTLE (Bluetooth) radio - which cannot be completely disabled by shutting down the hosting device. BTLE is very low power - and as such makes negligible demand upon the device's battery.
Other Apple devices that are in close proximity (~10m/30') can detect this encrypted beacon signal - and will anonymously report detection of the beacon along and their own derived location to Apple's FindMy servers. As the detected beacon will be within 10m/30' of the detecting device, whose location is known, the location of the beacon can be reported by Apple's servers - which in turn can report the location to the owner of the missing device.
It should be noted that the owners of detecting devices have no knowledge of beacon detection/report - and neither does the owner of the missing device have any knowledge of the device/devices that have detected and automatically reported the beacon. As such, a global network of detection devices anonymously participate within Apple's FindMy network.
Remote Erase
An iPad that has been instructed to erase using Apple’s Find My service will only erase when it receives the command to do so - this, logically, being determined by the iPad having an active network connection. If the Find My service indicates that the erase is pending, then the erase command has not [yet] been successfully delivered to the iPad; the status will change when [if] the command is successfully delivered to the device.
