The AirTag is intended to find your personal belongings, but can also be misused to unintentionally track someone. For example, by secretly putting a tag or find my object in someone’s backpack or jacket. Apple has come up with a solution for this.
If someone else’s AirTag or object ends up among your belongings, your iPhone will notice that you are taking it with you and will notify you. If the AirTag has not yet been found, it will even make a sound to alert you.
Apple protects your privacy
Anyone with an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS or iPadOS 14.5 or newer can be warned if an AirTag is accidentally found among your belongings. This is necessary to guarantee privacy, because someone could have secretly hidden this AirTag.
This makes sense, because as soon as an AirTag, which is separate from the one who registered it, moves with you, the owner may be able to see the location of the AirTag. Thanks to the ‘Moves with you’ notification, you are warned so that you are not secretly followed. This is not only the case for an AirTag, but also for objects with support for the Find My network.
AirTag moves with you
If you see this message and you are not aware of the AirTag, you can do the following:
- Open the ‘Moves with you’ notification
- Tap ‘Continue’
- If necessary, select ‘Play sound’ to locate the AirTag or object
- Tap ‘Information about this AirTag’
You can then view the serial number and check if the owner has reported it as lost. Then you can easily contact the owner and return the AirTag or object.
Is the AirTag not in lost mode? Then you can disable the tracker and stop sharing the location. To do this, tap ‘Instructions to disable AirTag’ and follow the on-screen steps. Contact your local police if you think your safety is at risk. According to Apple, law enforcement can contact them to cooperate. You may need to provide the AirTag or its serial number.
AirTag privacy message appears incorrectly
It may be that the AirTag is attached to something you borrowed and that the ‘AirTag moves with you’ message is incorrect. Then tap the message and then tap ‘Continue’. You can then tap Pause Safety Notifications to turn off notifications for found AirTags for one day.
If you borrow the AirTag from a family member who is part of the Family Sharing group, you can disable safety notifications for one day or indefinitely.
Notifications do not appear immediately
Do you happen to be with a friend who also has an AirTag, or are you on the train with many people with an AirTag or find my object? No problem. You will only see the notifications if the owner is no longer near the AirTag and it has been in your area for a certain period of time.
Apple explains that their unwanted tracking notification system uses an intelligent algorithm to determine how to notify users. As soon as the algorithm notices a strange pattern, you will receive a notification. Nowadays this happens quite quickly, in our test after about 30 minutes. The AirTag itself will also make a sound if the notification is not responded to, which will resound within 24 hours.