Harrowing home invasion footage reminds us to check for unknown Bluetooth trackers

Oh, paranoia! Everyone’s always “relax, don’t worry so much” until something happens to them. And if we’ve got access to the tools that might prevent those bad things from happening in the first place, shouldn’t we remember to be using them? That’s exactly what we’re thinking about this week, as we get an update on a scary home invasion case that appears to have involved tracking the victims via AirTag.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office out of Florida posted a chilling video on its Facebook page, showing the moment an Odessa couple was assaulted at their vehicle as they returned home. The assailants forced the victims into their garage, before ultimately fleeing after eventually triggering an alarm.

While investigating in the immediate aftermath, detectives managed to locate a hidden AirTag that had been secured underneath the victims’ vehicle. And while so far we haven’t seen anyone prove exactly how that may have been involved, it’s not difficult to imagine how thieves might target a victim while out and about, and want to follow them home to steal all the valuables back there.

The good news, for those of you who are starting to feel those paranoid juices flowing, is that we’ve got methods available to us for avoiding exactly this kind of incident. Manufacturers of Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices are now very much aware of the risks the misuse of their products represent, and have supported the development of systems to let us detect tags that appear to be tracking us (and which we don’t control ourselves).

Apple’s Tracker Detect app is available in the Play Store, and Android’s even got its own unknown tracker alerts. Of course, you actually need to be using those systems if you’re expecting to find anyone tracking you, so maybe consider this your reminder to install those apps, make sure alerts are turned on, and maybe even get into the habit of running a manual tracker scan before heading home.

Over the past couple weeks, Florida authorities have arrested both suspects wanted for their involvement in this event. And while they’re now off the street, who knows how many other tech-savvy criminals are still out there?