Users are getting ‘ghost AirTags’ alerts and no one knows what it could be

If in the middle of the night iOS warns you that there is a suspicious AirTag near you, it may be a false alarm.

AirTags have emerged as one of the main options to track certain objects and receive security alerts on our device, but this has also brought a multitude of controversies because cybercriminals and common criminals are using these new Apple devices to track a series of victims or even items they want to steal like cars.

While iOS sends an alert by default when it detects an unknown AirTag near a user, not everyone has an iPhone and is aware of these types of devices.

And now as you advance from the Wall Street JournalIn recent weeks, certain iPhone users have been receiving alerts from ghost AirTags that are supposed to be near them, but cannot actually be found.

In this case users receive an alert from the Find My app saying that “an AirTag has been detected near you”, with a map of the supposed location and routes of the tracker to find it.

Obviously this can cause a big scare, because a person can believe that someone is spying on him in the middle of the night, get out of bed, and despite following the instructions to find the suspicious AirTag, he does not see it anywhere.

As the report notes: “AirTag phantom alert maps share a similar pattern: straight red lines radiating from the wearer’s location”.

An Apple spokesperson has confirmed that this issue exists, and that they are working on a fix.

It has pointed out that such alerts “could be because it’s an iPhone receiving Wi-Fi signals in an area that has temporarily mistaken them for location services”.

He comments that a possible solution would be iGo to settings, then privacy, location services, and turn the switch off and on while Wi-Fi is on on iPhone.

Apple also warns that in highly populated areas other AirTags of nearby people could trigger these types of alerts.