Is Tracking Someone With an AirTag a Crime in Türkiye? Legal Framework
Learn the difference between using an AirTag to find belongings and tracking a person without consent: TCK 123/A, private life, and personal-data aspects.
Owning an AirTag or attaching one to your own keys, suitcase, or bicycle is not in itself prohibited in Türkiye. The legal risk depends less on the device’s existence than on who tracks what, for what purpose, and with what consent. Systematically tracking a person’s movements without their knowledge can raise persistent stalking, violation of private-life privacy, or personal-data crimes and liabilities, depending on the incident’s features.
Every incident is assessed on its own conditions. This article gives no personal legal opinion of the “this act is definitely a crime” kind; it explains the relevant headings and the right application paths.
When can AirTag use rely on a legitimate purpose?
Tagging your own belongings against loss or theft usually relies on a legitimate expectation. Examples:
- Finding your own keys or suitcase.
- Tracking your own bicycle’s location.
- Tracking an item shared within the family, with the users’ knowledge and consent.
- Openly telling that a lent item is tagged.
Even here, data minimization and transparency matter. Continuously tracking the location of another person carrying your item does not automatically become lawful with the “the item is mine” defense.
Which provisions may come up in non-consensual person tracking?
TCK 123/A: Persistent stalking
Article 123/A, added to the Turkish Penal Code in 2022, criminalizes causing serious unrest or safety concern in the victim as a result of persistently attempting physical following or contact through communication/IT tools and third parties. AirTag use is not listed by name in the article. But device-based tracking can be assessed as a whole together with physical following, messages, unexpected encounters, and other behavior.
Whether the crime occurred is decided by the prosecutor’s office and the court on concrete evidence. One location record is not the same as an ongoing behavior pattern affecting the victim’s life.
TCK 134: Private-life privacy
Secretly tracking a person’s movements relating to their private-life sphere can be examined under private-life privacy depending on the incident’s form. Hiding the device in a home, car, or personal belongings, the nature of the tracked locations, and how the data is used matter in the assessment.
TCK 135 and 136: Personal data
Location and movement patterns making a person identifiable can qualify as personal data. The TCK’s personal-data provisions may come up for unlawfully recording, giving, or seizing data. Also, if the activity carries a commercial/institutional data-processing aspect, separate obligations may arise under the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698.
Which provision applies depends on factors such as the perpetrator’s purpose, repetition, consent, the data’s nature, storage, and sharing.
Tracking a spouse, ex-spouse, or partner with an AirTag
Marriage or a relationship does not remove a person’s privacy and safety rights. Placing an AirTag in a spouse’s car or bag without their knowledge is not automatically legally acceptable. Especially with separation, threats, jealousy, or control behavior, persistent stalking and protection measures under Law No. 6284 may come up.
Law No. 6284 does not cover only married women; it provides protective and preventive mechanisms for women, children, family members, and victims of one-sided persistent stalking. Depending on the concrete conditions, measures such as stay-away, no harassment through communication tools, and temporary protection can be requested.
Can an employer track an employee’s car or location?
Corporate vehicle tracking is a separate, more complex field. Even with a legitimate purpose, the employer must inform the employee, rely on a lawful processing condition, collect only necessary data, limit retention, and ensure security. Continuous location tracking outside working hours can create proportionality problems.
Putting a small AirTag in a car without telling the employee differs from the transparent, purpose-limited use of a professional fleet-tracking system. Employers should get advice from a KVKK and labor-law expert on this.
Attaching an AirTag to a child or an elderly relative
An AirTag is not designed as a personal safety device or emergency-help system. The child’s age, best interests, capacity to understand, and custody status matter; for an adult relative, explicit consent and proportionality matter. Using location technology for the safety of restricted persons is no substitute for a professional care plan.
A tracking tag can show delayed or approximate location; it gives no uninterrupted-surveillance guarantee. Solutions designed for human tracking, with open consent and safety features, should be considered.
Is every use with consent lawful?
Consent must be specific, informed, and freely given. Saying “there is a tracking device in my car” does not automatically mean permission for unlimited, unbounded data use. When consent is withdrawn, the device may need removing and needless data deleting. In settings with a power imbalance such as an employment relationship, whether consent was freely given is additionally assessed.
If you think you are being tracked
First move to a safe place and call 112 in urgent risk. Keep the phone alert and route if any; if no notification, the BLE scan record, where the device was, the serial number, and previous following incidents in chronological order. That no operating-system alert formed does not by itself remove the physical finding’s legal assessment. Ask law enforcement how to hand it over without breaking or resetting the device.
The police, gendarmerie, Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Family Court, ŞÖNİM, and ALO 183 are among the application options. People with suitable economic conditions can apply to the bar’s legal-aid office.
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