Android’s new Find My Device feature is raising serious privacy concerns

As reported by TechRadar, at yesterday’s Google I/O event, the company announced an update to the Find My Device feature. The update will soon allow you to track your valuables using third-party Bluetooth-enabled trackers while also warning you about the presence of unwanted or unrecognizable AppleAirTags or other tracking devices. 

Unlike Apple’s proprietary “Find My” app service, the new Google Find My Device will anonymously use billions of Android devices worldwide to help you track your lost or stolen devices. Sure, that seems incredibly invasive, and although it may be a great thing to be able to find your missing device, even if it is offline, it might just feel a little too Big Brother-ish for some. 

How Google plans to manage this appears to be a personal security issue overwhelming finding. To be as loosely explained as the company’s Ai needs to be in everything approach that also felt a bit overwhelming and forced. 

Is there such a thing as too much tracking?

A tracking network built on the premise of using Bluetooth capabilities in billions of devices is raising privacy concerns. Of course, Google seemed all too happy to share that ” it’s taken some time to get this right,” but this is the same company that spent over 90% of Google I/O selling us on AI in every aspect of our lives. The security concerns of using Bluetooth technology to track our devices and ourselves are very scary. 

Many reports have shown how criminals have used Apple AirTags to track, stalk, and harm others. Sure, Apple and Google recently announced creating a cross-platform standard that will alert you to random unknown trackers, but is that enough? 

At the end of the day, it is up to individual users how much tracking they allow for on their devices, or maybe it is up to tech companies to find ways to give users the ability only to allow certain devices to find their coveted devices. There obviously needs to be regulation and security protocols put in place, which is the process that Google and Apple have triggered now with their proposed standard, but we’ll need to see what the final product of that process looks like before we feel entirely comfortable with the state of tracking tags, whether that tracking is done by Google, Apple, Samsung, or any other company.