In historic downtown Grapevine, it may not a crime you'd expect to hear about, but police say they are investigating an incident involving an Apple AirTag.
"A woman who was driving her car and got a notification on her iPhone that there was an Apple AirTag following her or with her,” Grapevine Police spokeswoman Amanda McNew said. “She did the right thing and she immediately called police to look at what was going on with that case."
People shopping on Main Street have heard about these types of crimes.
"That's how people are identifying women that are vulnerable or on their own and that's how they are pulling their victims, unfortunately," Grapevine visitor Charlotte Shakal said.
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Grapevine Police say there are typical places you can look for a tracker on your car.
"Look in the wheel wells of a car or the undercarriage or the bumper,” McNew said. “Just take a look underneath your car."
Cybersecurity expert Andrew Sternke with DarkBox Security Systems said people can take precautions.
"There are options now that your Apple phone will show if there is an unknown device around you," Sternke said. "If that's the case you can disable it from your phone."
On their website, Apple says AirTags are designed to discourage unwanted tracking and will send an alert if one is traveling with you.
People are glad this safety feature is there.
"My boyfriend’s keys have them so anytime I take his car it will be like it will tell me hey there is an air tag following you,” Shakal said. “So, it's nice Apple has something to kind of alert you about it."
Police say if you get an alert you should immediately do this.
"Go to police,” McNew said. “If you see something like this happen the best thing you can do is drive to a police station department. Go somewhere safe so you are not taking it home."
In a statement to NBC 5, Apple said:
"AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag. It’s why the Find My network is built with privacy in mind, uses end-to-end encryption, and why we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking. We hope this starts an industry trend for others to also provide these sorts of proactive warnings in their products.”
On their website, the company said misuse of AirTags is rare, but they have used the unique serial numbers associated with the devices to help law enforcement identify and charge suspects.
WHAT DO I DO IF I GET AN AIRTAG ALERT?
Apple provided this link on what to do if you receive an alert that an AirTag or other Apple device is tracking you. It also includes information on phone settings in order to receive the alerts.
Click here for more information.
According to Apple, if you use an Android device, you can download the Tracker Detect app from the Google Play Store. Tracker Detect looks for item trackers within Bluetooth range that are separated from their owner and that are compatible with Apple's Find My network. These include AirTag and compatible item trackers that use the Find My network. Click here to get the Tracker Detect app.
For more information from Apple click here.
