Bluetooth meets big brother in Bath

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 21 Jul 2008 at 11:40

Bluetooth tracking devices are being used to secretly monitor people's movements in Bath, according to a report in the Guardian.

The story claims that tracking devices, first installed 10 years ago, are capturing signals from Bluetooth enabled devices such as mobile phones and laptops to track the movement of people across the city.

The trackers were installed as part of the Cityware project being conducted by researchers at the University of Bath. The project captures the movement data of Bath citizens and stores it on a central database with the aim of studying how people move around cities.

The researchers claim that as they do not have access to the identity of people tracked the scheme is not a threat to privacy: "The objective is not to track individuals, whether by Bluetooth or any other means," Eamonn O'Neill, Cityware's director tells the newspaper.

"We are interested in the aggregate behaviour of city dwellers as a whole. The notion that any agency would seriously consider Bluetooth scanning as a surveillance technique is ludicrous."

However, privacy advocates disagree noting that Bluetooth codes which accompany the signal could be used to identify individuals and have warned the system could become as ubiquitous as CCTV in time.

The Information Commissioner's Office says it is monitoring the scheme.