AirTag tracking alert hits teenager’s phone at Disney World – without locating tracker
A family from Tennessee received an unexpected notification telling them that their AirTag had been found. Jennifer Gaston’s daughter, aged 13, received an alert from her iPhone saying that an AirTag was with them while she was walking towards her car.
“It stated that it was first detected with her at 7:09 PM, and we got the notification at about 11:33 PM,” Jennifer tells a Tennessee news station.
When the daughter clicked on the notification, she saw a map with a line connecting to all of the places the family had been in the last four hours.
“I had seen videos of other people warning people about them and what they were basically. “That’s how they knew I was there and that is why I didn’t ignore them,” my daughter stated.
After receiving an alert, the Gaston Family searched every item in their home but failed to locate the AirTag. When driving back to their hotel, they decided to call the police anyway.
According to their family, it is important to research these devices in order to be able to identify them. It’s important to have proper settings on your phone, so you can be notified if an unknown device ends up among your belongings.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was unable to identify any criminal offense because the AirTag wasn’t located by the family. However, the office did create an incident report of the situation. OSCO thinks that the “erroneous .”
” notification was possible due to thousands of Apple products being within close proximity on that particular day.
Apple has updated AirTag tracking alerts
Apple recently changed to address AirTag stalking issues. A privacy warning now pops up after you create an AirTag. The message states that the device is meant to track belongings and not for stalking purposes. The message also mentions that the AirTag can be linked to your Apple ID, and law enforcement may request this information.
Apple updated the notification system to identify unknown Find My Devices. The Gaston family got this notification when the AirTag found moving with them was sent to them. Android users can also receive new notifications if they find an AirTag that is not listed.
9to5Mac’s Take
While it was a frightening situation for the family’s members, it appears that the notification was an error. The Gastons were close to many other people and couldn’t locate an AirTag. It seems likely that Apple made a mistake by not finding any AirTags. It seems like we may have to wait a bit longer for Apple to perfect its unknown device alerts.