A new kind of license-plate-reading camera will also scrape the smart devices you take with you, and wrap all that data in a nice little bow for law enforcement and the government.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48289957

Defense contractor Leonardo is promoting a new technology called SignalTrace that will package plate cameras with sensors that can scrape unique identifiers tied to your smart devices and make that data available to law enforcement.

Police, border security, and other government agencies already comprise Leonardo’s customer base, and with this technology, those clients seek to correlate footage from these cameras to phones, tablets, wearables, AirTags, and, naturally, the electronics inside cars themselves.

If SignalTrace can pick up your Bluetooth headphones, you can be sure it’ll also be looking out for your vehicle’s 5G hotspot, infotainment system, and even its tire pressure monitoring sensors. The company includes pet microchips as a potential entry point to tracking.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    182·
    18 days ago

    Be sure to remind your local street folk that each of those cameras contains at least 3 lbs of copper wiring.

  • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
    131·
    18 days ago

    Late last year a city I have to drive through was bragging they had deployed systems to ID cars based on their TPMS sensors. I made a comment on lemmy some time later mentioning this, and also talked about how I had removed those sensors from my vehicle.

    I was immediately inundated with comments that more or less said “That’s too hard to do and requires special tools, also your car will certainly kill you once you take them out due to three tires having 36 psi and one tire having 35 psi, and it won’t work anyway because your car’s 5g connection and your phone so it’s a stupid idea and you should definitely not do it because you’d be a moron for doing so.”

    The fact that I was hit by so many comments that basically said the same thing so quickly, tells me I was correct for removing them. I wonder where those “people” are now?

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      72·
      18 days ago

      Those problems the users brought to your attention are accurate and still exist, though. Now there’s just additional problems.

      Unless you’re obscuring your license plate as you drive, they still don’t need this tech to track your movements and will continue to do so by camera, alone, and you’ve still degraded your driving experience. I’m not sure what you think was “solved” by removing your TPMS sensors, since they’re still tracking you just the same.

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
        22·
        17 days ago

        Hey look, another one!

        There is no reason to make it easier for them, is it?

        What part of my “driving experience” was degraded? You realize tire pressure gauges exist, right?

        I won’t discuss other options for the issues you mentioned, because you’re repeating the same words as some pretty obvious bots.

    • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      18 days ago

      I did not know tpms used radios for local comm. I would thought they’d used a type of rotary union like you see on semis with auto inflate tires.

      Leave it to manufacturers to find the cheapest solution thats worse for everyone.

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
        4·
        18 days ago

        Yup! 315 mhz, and each one broadcasts a unique identifier, making it easy to see which four sensors are yours.

  • Gerudo@lemmy.zip
    11·
    18 days ago

    With everything you can do to reduce your fingerprint from technology, stuff like this just makes it virtually impossible to carry anything electronic.