Naked Security kondigt de nieuwste trend aan van tracking via smartphone. Minder surrealitisch dan de Londense vuilnisbakken die je sporen volgen, maar minstens even nefast voor je privacy. Het gaat om winkels en shopping centra die hun klanten volgen via de wifi en kunnen identificeren via het MAC-adres van hun smartphone.
All WiFi-capable devices broadcast a unique ID, a Media Access Control (MAC) address, when they’re looking for networks (and so long as WiFi is enabled they are always looking for networks). Which means that if you walk around carrying a smartphone with WiFi enabled then you are broadcasting your own unique radio beacon and it’s easy to track your movements. MAC address tracking, also known as Mobile Location Analytics (MLA), is of serious interest to companies trying to sell you things.
(…) according to the Washington Post there are as many as 40 MLA companies in the USA, some with sizable venture capital funding, and they’re already logging thousands of customer interactions every day on behalf of retailers. And it’s going on in the UK too. (…) The Oracle, a large but not especially remarkable shopping mall in the UK town of Reading, had signs saying it was tracking customers’ mobile phones. [zie foto, dp]
Gelukkig is er een simpele manier om het tracken te omzeilen: schakel wifi en Bluetooth uit op je smartphone en gebruik die enkel als je ze effectief nodig hebt.
Naked Security geeft je overigens ook 10 tips for securing your smartphone.
[…] Er waren de ‘slimme’ afvalbakken van Renew in de straten van London. We hadden de shoppingcentra die hun klanten willen volgen via het MAC-adres van hun smartphone. En dan is er nog het verhaal […]