Former Love Island contestant Montana Brown has claimed she was tracked by an an Apple device, without her knowledge, making her feel “unsafe”.
The 27-year-old reality TV star said in March she found an AirTag, which she says did not belong to her, in her bag when she was landing solo after a flight to see friends in Los Angeles, California.
She said she discovered the issue when a notification popped up on her iPhone saying an AirTag was travelling with her, and after speaking to her partner, he advised her to check her bags.
.@MontanaRoseB found a hidden AirTag in her bag on a flight to the US.
'It was at the bottom of my bag. It was really alarming.'
She tells @kategarraway & @richardm56 how she felt when she discovered the AirTag as she recalls when she believes the AirTag was placed in her bag. pic.twitter.com/XM3N9mA7bj
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 3, 2023
On Monday, Brown told Good Morning Britain: “So as soon as I got through security, I was kind of brushing (it) off at this point: ‘Oh, it was probably nothing.’
“And it was only until I went to the toilet and kind of emptied everything out my bag that it was at the bottom of my bag so that was really alarming because I genuinely had no idea that somebody was even that close to me to be able to put it into my bag.”
Brown added: “I kind of panicked and just flushed it down the toilet because I was in the toilet anyway and I just thought because I was so kind of spooked and I was really surprised that I actually found anything.”
She claims her iPhone notification said that the AirTag started being read shortly before she got on her flight to the US.
Brown added: “That’s the first time I’ve been on my own, really, and felt very unsafe and I just wanted to kind of get out of the airport as quickly as possible.
“But it definitely was a shocking experience because you kind of like go down a rabbit hole of: ‘What would they then have done next, and what would they have tracked my location for?’”
'There are Bluetooth tracker or detector apps.'
Security expert @willgeddes shares his advice for what people can do to protect themselves after Montana Brown found a hidden AirTag in her bag on a flight to the US. pic.twitter.com/HwrGUHtVrz
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 3, 2023
When asked if it had made her more aware of her belongings, she said: “Absolutely, I still am really baffled how someone managed to literally (get) that close proximity without me noticing.”
Brown, who has appeared on Celebrity Mastermind, Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls and CelebAbility, was on series three of Love Island.
In 2017, she saw the competition won by entrepreneur Kem Cetinay and actress Amber Davies.
Brown announced her pregnancy with partner Mark O’Connor in December.
Apple said the company “condemns any malicious use” of its products and through its work with law enforcement knows “incidents of AirTag misuse are rare”.
The company directed the PA news agency to a previously released statement on AirTags and unwanted tracking.
It said: “Unwanted tracking has long been a societal problem, and we took this concern seriously in the design of AirTag.
“It’s why the Find My (iCloud) network is built with privacy in mind, uses end-to-end encryption, and why we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking.
“We hope this starts an industry trend for others to also provide these sorts of proactive warnings in their products.”
“We will continue to listen to feedback and innovate,” the company also said. “We’ve built a tunable system of deterrents which we are committed to making improvements to over time.”