Woman urges fellow tourists to check their bags after finding tracking device

A tourist has told of her dismay after discovering a tracking device inside her bag.

She was on holiday in Bali when she made the discovery. Emily Sinclair, who was travelling with her partner, said the pair had been hearing a “strange noise” coming from her bag for a few days. After the Australian emptied her bag, a tracking device fell out. According to Apple, the device is designed to “discourage unwanted tracking”. It is an a “super-easy way to keep track of your stuff” and easily locate it if it becomes lost. Sinclair was in a villa in Amed, in the east of the Indonesian island, when they made the discovery. “Neither of us have any Apple products and don’t own an Airtag. "We both completely emptied our bags before packing for the trip,” she revealed on Facebook. “The battery also was made in Indonesia.” The couple deactivated and dismantled the device. Sinclair said the find terrified the couple, who assumed someone was following them. “We dismantled and left the AirTag in Amed. "I wanted to see if this has happened to anybody else and give a warning to others to check your bags,” she said. Sinclair shared the warning on the Bali Bogans Facebook page.

Fellow travellers warned her to ditch her bag.

One wrote: “Weird. I think I’d be buying new bags before going to any airport just in case something been hidden in there.” AirTags are roughly the size of a coin and pair with other Apple devices and can be tracked via the Find Me app. One AirTag owner told Sinclair the noise she was hearing, was probably the device alerting her to its presence. “AirTags are specifically designed not to be able to be used to track people. AirTags are designed to keep going for more than a year on a standard battery. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s travelling with you and send you an alert,” the person explained. “After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there.” This article originally appeared on JOE UK.