Small tracking devices like Apple’s AirTags help find lost items. Sometimes they are also misused for secret surveillance or stalking. A new industry standard from Apple and Google is now intended to prevent this.
The IT giants Apple and Google want to prevent the misuse of small tracking devices for unwanted tracking of people with a joint initiative. Zeil is an industry standard across the Android and iOS mobile platforms. As the companies announced, other relevant manufacturers also support the proposal. These include Samsung, Tile, Chipolo, Eufy Security and Pebblebee.
True, Apple wasn’t the first company to launch Bluetooth and ultra-wideband-based trackers. But only with the introduction of the AirTags has the demand increased rapidly. Now the incidents in which people are persecuted against their will are increasing. The trackers are also used for other criminal activities such as car theft.
Apple introduced some safeguards to prevent stalking by AirTags. For example, foreign AirTags that are in the vicinity of another person for a while will emit a warning tone. In addition, the potential victims of persecution receive instructions on the iPhone on how to deactivate the foreign AirTag in their vicinity. This anti-stalking protection also works on Android smartphones. However, only with the app provided by Apple “Tracker Detect“. This does not automatically recognize when foreign AirTags are nearby. Instead, users have to manually scan for it with the app.
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Apple and Google are working together
“This new industry standard builds on AirTag’s defenses and, in collaboration with Google, is a critical step forward in combating unwanted tracking on iOS and Android,” said Ron Huang, Apple’s vice president of Sensing and Connectivity. The specification was submitted through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a leading organization for developing standards on the Internet.
Interested companies can review and comment on the draft over the next three months. Apple and Google then want to publish an implementation of the standard in production for unwanted tracking warnings by the end of 2023, which should then be supported in future versions of the iOS and Android mobile operating systems.