Police in Burlington, Vt. say its residents are finding hidden AirTags and other GPS tracking devices on vehicles returning from Montreal.
The Burlington Police Department said last week that it had received two separate reports in the past month from residents who discovered the devices on their vehicles.
The force says the technology is allegedly being placed there by criminals, and is asking anyone who notices a suspicious device on their vehicle to call police.
The warning comes as police forces across Canada are battling rising levels of auto theft, with criminals using increasingly quick and sophisticated methods to track and steal desirable vehicles.
Are people stealing cars in the U.S. and taking them to Canada? The article doesn’t really make that clear.
People are stealing cars in Canada and shipping them out of Port of Montreal and Port of Toronto in containers with falsified manifests. reportedly theives are using tracking tags to keep an eye on vehicles they want to eventually grab.
So they are assuming these drivers are Canadians and returning to Canada? (I suppose they can base that on a license plate.)
I think the assumption from the Vermont police is that someone comes to Canada, gets a tracker put in their wheel well or whatever while they’re here, then they return to the USA before their car is hit, but because of how these trackers work, their location is probably still known.
Got it. Thanks!
Just out of curiosity, I installed AirGuard on my phone so I’ll get notified if a tag is following me.
At this point, I suspect a colleague catches the same train to the office from time to time.
Doesn’t Android have that as a default now?
Yes. I’ve been notified about airtags traveling with me (one of the people I was with had one) and I never turned anything on or installed any special apps.
Interesting. I have a Pixel and it’s not in my settings as described. I’m running GrapheneOS, but I find it odd to omit such a useful privacy feature.
Edit: The feature is part of Google Play Services, not Android.
Yeah, I’m currently running lineage with GApps. Had some problems getting everything to run without them, and the priority, for now, was a working phone.
I feel like AOSP has been getting less love than Google’s proprietary stuff recently, more so than it used to. I don’t really see a logical reason to not have this in AOSP.
That’s how they knew I was visiting my girlfriend, who is totally Canadian.
