Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple finally makes it harder to stalk Android users with its new Tracker Detect app

By

Apple has announced and released a new AirTags tracker app for Android called Tracker Detect. This has been done to resolve one of the privacy issues inadvertently introduced with AirTags earlier this year — the ability to track someone without their knowledge. Once it was installed and a scan was initiated, the app was able to highlight unknown AirTag trackers nearby, essentially revealing the location of strangers and opening the door for planting an AirTag on someone without their knowledge to keep tabs on them.

AirTags were released earlier in the year as a rival to Tile and other Bluetooth trackers. They leveraged Apple’s Find My network to help users track lost items by communicating with a combination of Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband. Unlike Tile trackers, they could also be used to geolocate lost items. However, AirTags also came with an unintended consequence: They could allow people to be tracked without their knowledge by simply tagging their clothes or personal property. Apple users would be protected against it as an iPhone running iOS 15 would be able to detect that an unknown AirTag was found moving with you, but that was not an option for Android devices.

Recommended Videos

“AirTag provides industry-leading privacy and security features, and today we are extending new capabilities to Android devices,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to CNET when commenting on the recent release. “Tracker Detect gives Android users the ability to scan for an AirTag or supported Find My-enabled item trackers that might be traveling with them without their knowledge. We are raising the bar on privacy for our users and the industry, and hope others will follow.”

Related

Apple’s statement does strike us as a bit overgenerous. That someone could plant an AirTag on an Android device owner’s property without them being aware should have been a foreseeable outcome. To its credit, the company did update AirTags so that they would audibly notify you if they were on your person for over eight hours later than its initial three-day requirement. Raising the bar on privacy would have led to them launching the app and the AirTags simultaneously, rather than months later. The app also doesn’t passively scan for AirTags as iPhones do, making it more of a Band-Aid than a viable solution.

Alongside the Apple Tracker, Apple also unveiled iOS 15.2, complete with a new Privacy Dashboard, safety features for the Messages app, and bug fixes for iPhone 13 owners.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Michael Allison
Michael Allison
Mobile News Writer
A UK-based tech journalist for Digital Trends, helping keep track and make sense of the fast-paced world of tech with a…
3 states propose legislation in response to AirTag stalking
Person holding an Apple AirTag.

Apple's AirTag seems like a great idea in concept, but following numerous reports of the devices at the center of stalking cases, three U.S. states have proposed new legislation for the tags. Pennsylvania proposed a bill in January that seeks to "prohibit Apple AirTags from being used outside of their intended use as a locator for misplaced personal items" and now Ohio and New Jersey have followed the state's lead.

Both Ohio and New Jersey have brought new bills to their respective tables over the past week looking to prohibit the non-consensual tracking of individuals with some exceptions made for the guardians of minors and the elderly and select law enforcement cases. The two bills, as first reported by Android Police, seem likely to be passed as they've both received bipartisan support, but have raised many questions regarding GPS tracking and the law.

Read more
Apple rolls out another promised AirTag safety update
Person holding an Apple AirTag.

Apple has finally rolled out a promised update to its AirTag tracker that allows AirTags to chime with louder tones when separated from their owner's iPhone or other Apple device. The company had promised this as part of a package of updates in February, and the first such feature is rolling out.

"Tuning the unwanted tracking sound to more easily locate an unknown AirTag," Apple notes in the changelog for version 1.0.301. Alongside these changes, Apple has worked on other improvements to make AirTags less attractive as a stalking tool. The company has rolled out a new Tracker Detect app for Android users, as well as promised to increase precision in tracking unknown AirTags.

Read more
Apple’s AirTags keep being tagged in domestic abuse cases
Apple AirTag close up.

Apple's AirTags are in the news once more due to their misuse by perpetrators of domestic abuse. Despite, or perhaps because of, Apple's updates to iOS, there have been increasing reports of ArTags being used for stalking. A report from Motherboard this week, citing police records over a period of 8 months since the AirTag launched, found over a hundred police reports which included AirTags. A third of those, about 50, included women who suspected they were being stalked by a man in their life.

To recap, Apple's AirTags are small unobtrusive little discs that are meant to be attached to items allowing you to find them if misplaced. Apple has categorically ruled out tracking people without consent and retrieving stolen items as uses for AirTags, yet these are common (and obvious) use cases for AirTags.

Read more