UK bars trash cans from tracking people with Wi-Fi
Source: AP-Excite
By RAPHAEL SATTER
LONDON (AP) - Officials demanded Monday that an advertising firm stop using a network of high-tech trash cans to track people walking through London's financial district.
The Renew ad firm has been using technology embedded in the hulking receptacles to measure the Wi-Fi signals emitted by smartphones, and suggested that it would apply the concept of "cookies" - tracking files that follow Internet users across the Web - to the physical world.
"We will cookie the street," Renew Chief Executive Kaveh Memari said in June.
But the City of London Corporation insisted that Renew pull the plug on the program, which captures smartphones' serial numbers and analyzes signal strength to follow people up and down the street. Renew didn't immediately return a call seeking comment on whether it would comply with the authorities' demand.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130812/DA84I5682.html
A youth uses a trash bin in central London, Monday, Aug. 12, 2013. Officials say that an advertising firm must immediately stop using its network of high-tech trash cans, like this one, to track people walking through London's financial district. The City of London Corporation says it has demanded Renew pull the plug on the program, which measures the Wi-Fi signals emitted by smartphones to follow commuters as they pass the garbage cans. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
marble falls
(56,353 posts)DJ13
(23,671 posts)pepperbear
(5,648 posts)decide that because private corporations are the ones doing the invading, it isn't actually unconstitutional.
Akoto
(4,261 posts)[URL=/][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
Alamuti Lotus
(3,093 posts)tells me all that I ever need to know about England.
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)Might actually tell you more.
Alamuti Lotus
(3,093 posts)Given the vast surveillance society that the English government and business has established, I can't see any genuine disagreement from the authorities in cases like this...
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)'Heard about it' and 'noticed it' are essentially synonymous.
Note also that this was commercial surveillance rather than government surveillance, so perhaps they were just protecting their turf.
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)bananas
(27,509 posts)Trash cans tracking cookies?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,282 posts)... This sort of thing should be reserved for their MI5, or our very own NSA..
It's for our own good.
askeptic
(478 posts)Looks like we need to have a much more secure cell structure or we need to be able to quickly disconnect the power from these things so we aren't tracked everywhere we go.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)I've always thought of them as the human equivalent of tracking collars, and the wifi addition just makes it that much worse.
What fascinates me is how complacent people have become; it's been a grand social experiment. I'm sure some researcher somewhere is patting him/herself on the back, having successfully predicted how long it would take for the novelty to become the necessity, complete with all the justifications of why it's okay to be electronically tagged 24/7.