Android has learned to notify about other people's GPS trackers nearby

In May, Apple and Google announced about the joint development of a tool that prevents secret surveillance of people using AirTag and GPS trackers. Now, the finished tool has begun to appear on Android devices.

Google announced about it in the official blog, noting that the unknown beacons alert feature will work on Android 6.0 and later.

If an AirTag or other Bluetooth tracker is detected that follows the user for some time, the system will send a notification to the owner of the mobile device. By opening it, you can see the route of the beacon on the map, as well as play a sound signal on it.

The detected tracker, if it has NFC, can be brought to the back of the smartphone to determine its serial number and get information about the owner, for example, the last four digits of the number phone. If necessary, the beacon can be completely disabled so that its owner stops receiving information about the movement.

In addition, Google has implemented a manual scan feature that allows the user to scan their environment for unknown trackers. You can launch such a search from the settings: “Security and emergency cases” → “Unknown tracker alerts” → “Scan now”.

So far, this function only works with AirTag, but later the developers promise to add support for other trackers, for example, from Samsung. The innovation is spreading gradually.