Bluetooth Surveillance To Record Mobile User Activity
Here’s some more food for though for the conspiracy theorists out there. Though not quite as scary of the potential for the FBI to listen in on phone conversations, a scheme put in place by the University of Bath covertly tracks and reports the movements of thousands of Britons via Bluetooth. The ‘Cityware’ project has secretly placed scanners in streets, pubs and offices in order to map the journeys of individuals to allegedly ’survey the mobile computing landscape’. A recent study monitored the movements of 10,000 people in Bath but related parties scoff at concerns over privacy. Cityware director Eamonn O’Neill told The Guardian that “The notion that an agency would seriously consider Bluetooth scanning as a surveillance technique is ludicrous”. These views weren’t shared by pressure group Privacy International, with director Simon Davies countering that “If the technology is as safe as they claim, then all the technical specifications should be published and people should be informed when they are being tracked. This technology could well become the CCTV of the mobile industry” It certainly doesn’t sound too appealing to us, neither do Bath’s nonchalant claims that it’s simply surveying the mobile landscape. Exactly why this needs to be done and what benefits it’ll bring we’re not sure, but with Cityware’s software being made available on the Internet expect more people to be kicking off about it sooner rather than later. - Paul Lester [DailyMail] Bluetooth surveillance mobile phone
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Original post by nafiz