Disable Air Tag tracking me that I don’t own

anonymous9088 wrote:

I’ve had an alert that an unknown air tag is moving with me, I’ve turned airplane mode on now when I’m close to my car so it can’t work off a device (is this right?)

The AirTag, when not within Bluetooth range of the owner's iPhone, it will use the Apple's crowd-sourcing "Find My Network", which consists of literally millions of iPhones, to relay the tag's ID (along with the phone's GPS location) to the Apple servers over the Internet. By enabling Airplane mode on your iPhone, you would disable your phone's Bluetooth and Internet connections which would effectively prevent these tag "location" updates from making it to the Apple servers. In turn, the tag's owner, as you suspect would not see these updates ... but would potentially only have the last known location available to them for a limited time ... so, yes you are right.

Is there a way I can disable it without finding it and therefore taking the battery out?

Sorry, but no. Apple provides you two options to try locating the hidden tag:

1. Use the Find My app on your iPhone to have the tag play a sound. If the tag is well hidden, you may not be able to hear it. On the other hand, if it is so well hidden, its Bluetooth beacon may not be able to be received by your phone. However, this doesn't appear to be the case here. Some nefarious types actually go through the trouble to disable the tag's speaker. This would be another reason you will not be able to hear it.
2. Your iPhone model supports "Precision Finding." With this feature, when you are within Bluetooth range of an AirTag, the Find My app will display a "radar" screen which would point you towards the tag. Sort of like the "warmer/colder" game kids play.

If neither of these helps you locate the tag, and you believe the tag is somewhere in/on your car, you can visit your local mechanic to see if they can help locate it for you ... or, alternately, if you feel that you are being stalked, contact your local law enforcement.

Look at the section “Find the unknown AirTag, AirPods, or Find My network accessory“ in the following article to have the AirTag make a sound so that you can find it: What to do if you get an alert that an AirTag, Find My network accessory, or set of AirPods is with you - Apple Support.