German researchers show ordinary WiFi routers can identify people with near-perfect accuracy, no camera needed
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that unencrypted WiFi signals already exchanged by routers can identify people with near total accuracy, per KIT and ScienceDaily.
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, led by Professor Thorsten Strufe with Julian Todt and Felix Morsbach, showed that ordinary WiFi routers can identify people using unencrypted beamforming feedback information that WiFi devices already exchange with routers. In tests on 197 participants, the system identified individuals with near 100% accuracy regardless of viewing angle or gait, and needs no special hardware, just a standard WiFi device. The researchers presented their findings at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) in Taipei and warn the technique could let authoritarian governments track protesters without visible surveillance infrastructure. They are calling for privacy safeguards to be built into the upcoming IEEE 802.11bf WiFi standard. Sources: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), ScienceDaily. Visuals and voiceover are AI-generated.