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The evidence report

What an evidence report can actually prove

An evidence report is a timestamped PDF built from the positions your tag reported, for the moment someone disputes where your things were. Below is every question it can answer, what each answer rests on, and — just as important — where the record runs out.

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  1. 01Did it arrive — and exactly when?

    The finding
    The first position inside the address you named, paired with the last one outside it. The two bracket the moment of arrival to a known interval, usually minutes wide.
    You supply
    An address and a tolerance
    Why Find My can't
    You would have had to have Find My open at that exact minute, and a screenshot timestamps the screenshot, not the arrival. The history recovers the instant weeks later, to the second.

  2. 02Did it ever go near that address?

    The finding
    The closest the asset ever came to the point you named, and the share of the window the tag was reporting at all — because a negative claim is only ever as strong as the coverage behind it.
    You supply
    An address and a tolerance
    Why Find My can't
    Structurally impossible in Find My. A negative claim needs continuous coverage to argue from, and Find My keeps one current position and discards the rest, so there is nothing to argue absence from.
    Read this one carefully. A report cannot prove your things were never somewhere. It proves the tag was never recorded there, across a stated share of the window — and a gap in coverage is a gap in the claim. That distinction is the first thing a competent opponent will reach for, so the report states the coverage up front rather than burying it.

  3. 03When did it leave?

    The finding
    The last position inside the address you named and the first one outside it — the departure bracketed the same way an arrival is.
    You supply
    An address and a tolerance
    Why Find My can't
    No “left at” record exists anywhere. Separation alerts ping you in the moment and leave nothing behind you can produce afterwards.

  4. 04Where was it last seen, and how did it get there?

    The finding
    The final observation, and the approach into it: the positions leading up to the last one, not just the endpoint.
    You supply
    Nothing — the record alone answers it
    Why Find My can't
    Find My shows the endpoint but never the path into it, and overwrites even that the moment the tag reports again. Police want the approach, and they want it after the item has moved on.

  5. 05Which borders did it cross, and when?

    The finding
    The sequence of countries the asset passed through, each crossing bracketed by the last position before the frontier and the first after.
    You supply
    Nothing — the record alone answers it
    Why Find My can't
    Find My has no concept of a route. Crossings are derived from the retained sequence of positions, which is precisely what it throws away.

Why an address needs a tolerance

Three of the five questions ask you to name a place. That is deliberate: “at the warehouse” has no meaning to a document until someone declares a point and a radius around it, and a report that quietly guessed one would be evidencing a claim you never made.

The radius should cover the address plus the network's positional error — a delivery yard, not the whole city. You choose it, the report prints it, and every finding that depends on it is stated in terms of the number you chose.

What the record cannot do

Worth knowing before you rely on one, not after:

  • It starts when you connect, never before. Apple keeps no history to import, so a report can only cover the window in which AirTag History was already recording. Connect before the move, not after the dispute.
  • AirTags are not GPS. A tag is only located when someone else's iPhone passes within Bluetooth range and relays the sighting. A busy motorway updates constantly; a sealed container mid-Atlantic reports nothing at all.
  • Gaps are printed, not smoothed over. Every interval the network went quiet is disclosed in the report with its duration. A document that interpolated across them would read better and be worth less.
  • It evidences the tag, not the object. The report states where the tag was. That the tag was in the box is your account of it, and no tool can supply that for you.

The history has to exist before you need it

Tracking is free and always will be. You only pay if a dispute happens and you want the report — but the record it is built from has to already be running.

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