Tile sticker and Apple AirTag
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Apple And Googling announced Monday that updated iPhones and Android phones will show alerts warning users that a wireless location tracking device is nearby, in case the user didn’t know they were being tracked and wants to stop it.
The move is the latest sign that the two major platforms are working to solve the downside of wireless trackers – like Apple’s AirTag – which can be useful for finding lost or stolen items by showing their location on a digital map, but which can also be used by criminals to track people down.
iPhone and Android devices with up-to-date software will receive a message stating that a Bluetooth tracker is “moving with you.” Users can then have the tracker play a sound to make it easier to find the tracker, and access instructions on how to turn it off.
When AirTags were first introduced by Apple in 2021, they quickly found an audience among users who attached the small devices to their keys, luggage, or even their car, allowing them to use Apple’s global network of devices and crowdsourced Bluetooth signals use to quickly find their lost items, for example checked luggage that never arrived after a flight.
But the devices were also used for crime, with some victims saying they were given an AirTag in a busy bar to be tracked. Since then, Apple has teamed up with Google to integrate alerts and alerts into iOS and Android to combat criminal abuse. Alerts that specifically warn of an AirTag traveling with the user were already built into Android.
The AirTag is also now just one of many Bluetooth trackers. Apple and Google allow third-party companies, such as Chipolo and Motorola, to build their own devices.
But when third-party companies build so-called “Find My” trackers for lost devices, they must build them to Apple and Google’s specifications, which now require unwanted tracking alerts.
Apple and Google said they were working together to create a public industry specification for these types of Bluetooth tracker devices, but while the official standard isn’t finished yet, both companies have implemented the warnings into their operating systems, starting with Apple’s iOS 17.5, which will be released on Monday, and Android devices running version 6.0 or newer.