…placing at least seven AirTags on his ex-wife’s car to surveil her.
Assuming the tags weren’t checking in with an owning device (iPhone) that car would’ve been beeping up a storm.
I recently lent a set of work keys to a colleague that I forgot had an AirTag on them, in their words: “fucking things beeped all weekend and my phone kept telling me I’m being followed!”
Unfortunately, yes. iPhones will check passively and Android phones can get an app but you have to check actively. Hopefully Apple and Google work on a solution for active detection on Android devices.
Not that I’m aware of, for the reasons you mentioned. I believe you can now share AirTag locations with family members and that’ll count towards ‘checking in’ and not beep but nothing for sharing with someone outside of family members.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@beehaw.org
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Assuming the tags weren’t checking in with an owning device (iPhone) that car would’ve been beeping up a storm.
I recently lent a set of work keys to a colleague that I forgot had an AirTag on them, in their words: “fucking things beeped all weekend and my phone kept telling me I’m being followed!”
You would need a phone that can detect that stuff in the first place. Maybe she didn’t.
Unfortunately, yes. iPhones will check passively and Android phones can get an app but you have to check actively. Hopefully Apple and Google work on a solution for active detection on Android devices.
It’s been built into android for a little while now
Is there a way to temporarily disable tracking for circumstances such as this when you loan your keys or something?
I suppose not, or people would disable it and then re-enable it later, unless they require proximity or some other protection against that.
Not that I’m aware of, for the reasons you mentioned. I believe you can now share AirTag locations with family members and that’ll count towards ‘checking in’ and not beep but nothing for sharing with someone outside of family members.