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A Kelowna family is on edge and without answers after finding a location tracker attached to their pickup truck.

Tim Graves doesn't know where it came from or why it was tucked away behind his bumper, but it has him keeping an eye on his family and the vehicle after finding it earlier this week.

"Somebody is watching where we drive to find out where we live. That's messed up," Graves said. "That's super scary."

His wife found the Apple AirTag earlier this week after getting a notification to her phone.

Graves said she got the same notification a day earlier after getting back to their Rutland home from a grocery trip. They ignored it the first time, but this time it sparked their interest.

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The notification is Apple's safety feature specifically geared toward preventing unwanted tracking. When an AirTag is separated from its owner's phone for too long, it will notify others in the area of its presence.

Graves' wife then simply had to tap a button on the phone to sound a chime from the AirTag, which she did as she went outside to investigate. It led her to the front of the truck.

"She reaches inside the bumper, up and around into a nook. She pulls out the AirTag wrapped in a Ziploc bag that's been zip-tied on both ends," he said. "It kind of looked like a candy, like a bonbon."

Graves said they don't drive his truck, a 2017 Dodge Ram, often. Sometimes it's only once per week and this time Graves took it to the Rutland Freshco on Sunday, then his mother's the next day. He can't be certain how long the tracker was on the truck or where they were when it was slipped into the bumper, in part because Apple doesn't clearly state how long the AirTag must be away from its owner before sending notifications.

On March 11, Graves' wife reported the discovery to Kelowna RCMP. Graves said the first officer didn't seem to take the matter seriously and suggested they destroy it.

"Have fun smashing it," he quoted the officer as saying.

Unconvinced by the response, he took as much information as he could from the device and removed the battery.

"I was leaving it for the officer to take it out of the bag and do this stuff. Obviously he didn't so at that point I didn't like how it ended," he said. "We took it out of the Ziploc bag it was in, and it's really easy to use your iPhone to get the information."

They later followed up with the detachment and on Wednesday another officer said he'd check in on their concerns. That hadn't yet happened as of Thursday afternoon.

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iNFOnews.ca tried to ask Kelowna RCMP questions about the incident, including whether or not the detachment had received similar reports in the past, but the request for comment when unanswered.

The malicious or criminal use of GPS trackers has been reported to police in other parts of the country.

They've been used by auto thieves in Ontario and in Alberta, but it's not only property that can be at risk.

A convicted sexual predator was recently caught using GPS devices to track multiple vehicles in Saskatchewan, with some of the victims known to him. In Coquitlam, a woman killed by her estranged husband once found an AirTag on her car during a protracted effort to escape his stalking. Another woman in New Brunswick found one in her purse after returning home from a night club.

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The risks that come with such tracking technology is what prompted a new feature in 2022, the same one that notified the Graves family of a stranger's hidden AirTag on their pickup.

Google and Apple then teamed up to announce a new feature last spring that goes beyond only notifying iPhones of unwanted AirTags. Android devices can now get the same notification with the feature also expanded to both operating systems to monitor for unwanted GPS trackers made by third-party companies.

Graves himself picked up his own AirTags as a safety measure, with family members now keeping them, along with another attached to their truck.

Taking warnings from incidents elsewhere in the country, risking either personal safety or their truck, they decided to keep them as a safety measure. Graves also notified their daughters' daycare of the incident in case there's any danger for her.

Unfortunately for Graves, he cannot easily find out who owns the one they found. It gave him its serial number and the last four digits of its owner's phone number.

Whether Kelowna RCMP will find more answers is yet to be seen.

"It brings a few concerns, like why is someone watching you? What's the reasoning behind it?" Graves said. "We're basically just trying to be very secure."

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