July 21, 2008
Bluetooth covert monitoring system in the UK raises privacy issues
According to The Guardian, "tens of thousands of Britons are being covertly tracked without their consentin a technology experiment which has installed scanners at secret locations in offices, campuses, streets and pubs to pinpoint people's whereabouts.
The scanners, the first 10 of which were installed in Bath three years ago, are capturing Bluetooth radio signals transmitted from devices such as mobile phones, laptops and digital cameras, and using the data to follow unwitting targets without their permission.
The data is being used in a project called Cityware to study how people move around cities. But pedestrians are not being told that the devices they carry around in their pockets and handbags could be providing a permanent record of their journeys, which is then stored on a central database."
The Bath University researchers behind the project claim their scanners do not have access to the identity of the people tracked."
[via coolsmartphone]
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