Apple AirTag Android App is Absolutely Awful—Tracker Detect Fail

Apple is proud to announce its anti-stalking app for Android. The Tracker Detect app lets Android users scan for malicious, hidden AirTag trackers placed by stalkers, thieves and other bad people. Sounds great, right? Except …

“Tracker Detect is a big disappointment,” says the editor of MacWorld. In tests, the app didn’t actually detect trackers. And it can’t actually use a legitimate AirTag.

Good grief. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we get lost.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: The Song Society.

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What’s the craic? Igor Bonifacic reports—“Apple releases Tracker Detect to protect Android users from AirTags stalkers”:

“Multiple incidents of bad actors abusing AirTags”
Apple has released Tracker Detect, a new Android app designed to help those without an iOS device to find out if someone is using [a] Find My-compatible device to snoop their location. … You’ll get instructions on how to remove its battery or otherwise disable it.
…
The release of Tracker Detect comes following multiple incidents of bad actors abusing AirTags to stalk people. In Canada, for example, police recently warned of thieves using the $29 device to steal expensive cars.
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“AirTag provides industry-leading privacy and security features. … Tracker Detect gives Android users the ability to scan for … trackers that might be traveling with them without their knowledge,” an Apple spokesperson [said].

Wait. Pause. This is a Thing? Ian Sherr has background—“Apple’s following through on a promise to help Android users”:

“It didn’t offer support for other phones”
Privacy advocates warned earlier this year that Apple AirTags could be used as a way to track and stalk people. Critics noted that … it likely has greater reach than any other device tracking service. They also noted that Apple built proactive warnings about nearby AirTags into its iPhones, but that it didn’t offer support for other phones.

Oh! Well, I bet Eva Galperin—@evacide—will be happy:

“I have to go put it through its paces”
When Apple launched the AirTag earlier this year, its anti-stalking mitigations included a warning if a…