TL;DR
- Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions is proposing its SignalTrace tech to law-enforcement agencies. SignalTrace could let police track vehicles using the electronic signals from phones, laptops, smartwatches, and other nearby devices alongside ALPR cameras.
- While Leonardo says the system does not identify individuals, recurring device signatures could potentially be linked to specific vehicles and their registered owners.
- The technology could help police track vehicles that evade license-plate cameras, but it could also flag innocent people when their devices appear in vehicles associated with an investigation.
Imagine a world where the police can identify people on the move not just by their license plate, but also the electronic devices that are traveling with them. This is exactly what a new sensor system from Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions is designed to achieve.
The technology is aptly named SignalTrace, and it is designed to detect Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID signals being emitted from nearby devices (via ArsTechnica). Leonardo’s idea is to deploy these sensors alongside automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras like those from Flock.
