AirTags only go so far: A new partnership is filling Canada’s car theft gap

'The Air Tag -- it is not precise enough,' said Port of Montreal COO David D’Amboise. 'There are thousands of containers, so it's very difficult to identify.'

In Canada’s car theft crisis, drivers are increasingly relying on tracking devices like Apple AirTags to keep tabs on their vehicles — and if they’re stolen — try to hunt them down.

But law enforcement officials and port authorities warn the technology has its limitations.

An AirTag may show a stolen car’s general location but won’t pinpoint exactly where it’s hidden, which is particularly challenging if it winds up at a Canadian port.

“There are thousands of containers, so it’s very difficult to identify,” said David D’Amboise, the chief operations officer at the Port of Montreal, Canada’s main destinations for swiped cars.

“The Air Tag, it is not precise enough to give us a clear indication where the container is located.”

Port authorities are partnering up with Montreal-based business Tag Tracking to try to narrow down the search and stop these cars from making their way overseas.

“You can’t open 100 containers to find one container. It’s time consuming,” said Tag Tracking vice-president Freddy Marcantonio in an interview with Global News.

The company is installing receivers across the Port of Montreal to “locate, more precisely and more rapidly, a suspicious container.”