Apple and Google’s cross-platform anti-stalking Bluetooth notifications are now live

The Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers (DULT) standard is a cross-platform initiative designed to prevent Bluetooth trackers like Apple AirTags from being misused to track people without their knowledge. The specification allows iOS and Android devices to detect and notify you when a tracker that complies with the standard is with you and its owner is not.

Apple said in a press release that if an unknown Bluetooth tracking device moves with you “over time,” you will receive an “(Item) Found Moving With You” message on your iPhone, regardless of the platform the device is running on is coupled. You can view the tracker’s identifier, have the tracker play a sound to help you find it, and even find out how to disable it.

While Apple introduced AirTags without the ability to notify Android users when someone followed them, the problem was fixed a few months later with an Android app. Since Google implemented DULT in December, the feature is now built into Android. But with Google’s expanded Find My Device network now live and available to Android users, the potential for third-party devices to unknowingly track people could increase exponentially.

To rule out these types of legitimate privacy concerns, Google announced that it would wait for Apple to implement DULT into its ecosystem before adding support for Bluetooth tracker tags to the Find My Device network. Now that Apple has added the standard to iOS, it’s likely that many of these new Bluetooth trackers will hit the market soon.