Apple AirTag and stalking, watch out for false alarms: there is a bug

When Apple launched AirTags in April 2021, the curiosity for trackers was immediately flanked by privacy concerns. Perplexities that, as shown by the complaints for stalking related to the accessory of the bitten apple, are legitimate: even on eBay you can find modified AirTags with the speaker deactivated.

It is no coincidence that with iOS 15.4 a disclaimer has been added that warns the user about the consequences of improper use of the device, and in Cupertino they have recently confirmed that they are working on a series of updates aimed at countering these scenarios.

And to make the situation more chaotic now another element has emerged highlighted by the Wall Street Journal. Apparently they have arrived multiple “Phantom AirTag” reports. When iOS recognizes an unknown AirTag nearby, in fact, it sends a notification to the user, warning him of the possible danger, providing him with a map relating to the simultaneous movements and giving him the possibility to sound the alarm inside the tracker, so that he can be identified and to remove.

However, some users have recorded alerts – often received in the middle of the night – of dubious nature. False alarmsin short, which suggest the presence of a annoying bug. To recognize if the notification received corresponds to a real danger or to a phantom AirTag, the clue comes from displacement map, which in these anomalous cases shows a similar and hardly credible pattern: numerous straight lines that radiate from the user’s position.

The paths are implausible because an AirTag moving along those lines would have to fly or dematerialize to cross buildings and urban obstacles smoothly. However, the user may not immediately recognize this anomaly, and understandably enter a state of anxiety.

An Apple spokesperson questioned on the matter since Wall Street Journal he speculated that these false alarms could result from an iPhone being temporarily misled by Wi-Fi signals received from the area. A potential solution, in this case, could be to go to Settings> Privacy> Location Services, and here toggle the switch on and off while the smartphone’s Wi-Fi is enabled.

In addition, the Cupertino spokesman also noted how in densely populated areas, others’ AirTags may inadvertently trigger unwanted alerts.

At the moment, however, it is not clear what the reason and extent of the problem is: waiting for Apple to officially express itself, and perhaps release a corrective update to cancel this malfunction, if you receive warnings relating to an unknown AirTag in the vicinity, do not underestimate them, but take a careful look at the map of the movements to understand if it presents the attributable anomalies to the bug, and therefore whether it is a false alarm.