Cal Gaunt
A former Love Island star was left terrified after discovering a tracking device had been planted inside her car.
Maria Wild, who appeared on the fifth series of the hit reality show as a ‘bombshell’, explained her iPhone had alerted her to an Apple AirTag tracking her location – but did not know where it was.
According to The Sun, she wrote on an Instagram story: “I got into my car to drive home at 2:30am last night and someone had put a tracker on my car.
“My phone notified me of this but by the time I realised what was going on I had driven to my home address, which would be visible to the owner of the device.
“Does anyone know or have any ideas of what I could do? So scary to know someone now knows my home address, and can watch my every move.”
The Apple AirTag is a small device designed to help users locate items such as keys, wallets and bags.
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It sends out a Bluetooth signal to the Find My network, which then sends its location to iCloud, thus appearing on a map in the Find My app.
Later, Wild said on Instagram that she had found the AirTag inside a spare tyre in the boot.
On its website, Apple says AirTags are designed to discourage unwanted tracking.
It reads: “If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s travelling with you and send you an alert.
“After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there.”
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Apple released a statement earlier this year about the issue of unwanted tracking.
It 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.”
Apple has disputed claims that its AirTags could be used as unsolicited tracking devices.
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