HOW TO FIND BLOCK, AND DISABLE AN UNKNOWN AIRTAG MOVING WITH YOU

APPLE'S NEW TRACKER HAS A LOT OF POSITIVE USES, BUT YOU MIGHT BE CONCERNED THAT YOU'RE BEING TRACKED WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

- GLENN FLEISHMAN

The new AirTag from Apple is a compact tracking device that has an extremely long life and precise locating ability in the right circumstances. Unlike a GPS tracker, which requires cell service and may drain a battery quickly, an AirTag relies on the distributed Find My network of iPhones, iPads, and Macs that hundreds of millions of people around the world carry with them, and uses Bluetooth LE to signal that hardware.

While there are a thousand positive and legitimate ways to use an AirTag, it can be abused when someone tracks you without your knowledge, which potentially exposes you to a dangerous situation. For example, the York regional police department in Canada recently announced that AirTags are being placed in hidden areas of target cars parked in public, and then tracked to the driver's residence, where the cars are stolen while parked in the driveway (fave.co/3GlnxOB). More recently, a woman claimed that she found an AirTag hidden in her wheel well after her iPhone alerted her that an AirTag was moving with her (fave.co/33e8puw).

Incidents like this are rare (York police said there have been five AirTag-involved thefts out of 2,000 in the region). Apple has put some safeguards in place so that an iPhone, iPad, and AirTag provide varying kinds of alerts and information if one is moving with you and the owner who paired the AirTag with their iPhone or iPad isn't nearby. There are tools built into the iPhone to find and disable AirTags, as well as an Android app that will scan for AirTags in the vicinity.