Again in Might, Google and Apple jointly announced that they had been teaming as much as forestall undesirable monitoring via AirTags and related units. In the present day, Google is saying that the rollout of unknown tracker alerts is now starting on units operating Android 6.0 and later. Proper now, this solely works with AirTags, however Google says it is working with tag producers to increase this safety to different monitoring tags over time.
Here is the way it works. If an unknown Bluetooth tracker is separated from its proprietor and decided to be touring with you, you may be notified in your Android gadget. For those who faucet the notification you may be taught extra in regards to the tracker and examine a map of the place it was seen touring with you. There’s additionally a “play sound” possibility that may make the tracker make a noise so that you could find it with out the proprietor of the tracker figuring out.
Moreover, if you convey the tracker close to the again of your telephone, it’d share its serial quantity or extra details about its proprietor, just like the final 4 digits of their telephone quantity. You may also discover ways to disable the tracker utterly, so it’ll cease the proprietor from receiving any future location updates from it.
That is all meant to forestall stalking through the use of AirTags and AirTag-like trackers, and it appears to be an excellent step in the fitting course. Google additionally constructed a handbook scan function that allows you to verify your environment for trackers with out having to attend for an alert.
To manually search, you might want to go to Settings > Security & emergency > Unknown tracker alerts and faucet the Scan now button in your Android gadget. The scan will take about 10 seconds.
Lastly, Google introduced that it is holding the rollout of its Discover My System community till Apple implements related protections in iOS. The corporate says the joint undesirable tracker alert specification must be finalized by the top of this yr, after which the Discover My System community shall be made stay.
