Russia does pretty widespread GPS jamming and spoofing both in their country as well as across the Baltics and Nordics (and others). If a phone is receiving bad GPS data when it reports sensing the tag, the tag location will reflect that bad GPS data and not reality.
> Or is it cheapo Android Phones picking up the tag and then sending GPS coords into cloud?
AirTags have no integration with Android devices. There's a shitty app from Apple you can install that allows you to scan for AirTags nearby, one shot. It's supposedly against stalkers, but it's practically useless. There a bunch of other community apps with varying features like finding and notifying you there's an AirTag nearby. But you can't even track your own AirTags from an Android device, because Apple have decided you must do it from an iDevice. No browser, no Android app. You can check your iPhone's location via the browser, but not the AirTag.
The Android ecosystem has an alternative thing, but depending on the phone manufacturer you have to opt in to your device being used to track trackers around you.
When I travel to places with low iPhone market share, I always have one tracker of each ecosystem, just in case.
The United States (who created and operates GPS) also has the ability to make civilian GPS receivers in a specific area or region area less accurate, in case of war. I would assume that other countries' systems (Russia, China, maybe not EU) also have this ability.
GPS was primarily developed as a military technology. It was intentionally inaccurate for all civilians up until the year 2000.
Most of the time people say “GPS” they really mean any of the several GNSS systems, which also include: GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS, and BeiDou
While they’re all susceptible to jamming, one system getting shutdown by its operator means most modern devices can shift to the others for most applications. Not unusual for consumer devices to support multiple (but dunno how they handle disagreements)
my runner friends hate it, suddenly your Garmin can't show your pace and distance properly.
(I am very much aware it's a 1st world problem to have in times of war)
