London recycling bins secretly record half-million smartphone addresses

[Newsjock]

Source: Wired

The unique identifying numbers of over half a million smartphones have been recorded by a network of recycling bins in central London.

Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians walking past 12 locations unknowingly had the unique MAC address of their smartphones recorded by Renew London. Data including the "movement, type, direction, and speed of unique devices" was recorded from smartphones that had their Wi-Fi on.

... In a comment to Quartz, Renew London CEO Kaveh Memari said, "London is the most heavily surveillanced city in the world… As long as we don't add a name and home address, it's legal."

"We collect anonymised and aggregated MAC data -- we don't track individuals or individual MACs. The ORBs aggregate all footfall around a pod for three minutes and send back one annonymised aggregated report from each site so the idea that we are tracking individuals again is more style than substance," says Memari in an email. "There are applications in the future which Quartz focused on but during the trial period we are only looking at anonymised and aggregated MAC data."

Read more: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/09/recycling-bins-are-watching-you

[MannyGoldstein]

1. That's very creepy

I'm sure they can tie the MAC addresses back to owners using Spy On Everyone program data.

Very bad.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Only time mine is on

is for large updates at home. I also avoid taking the phone out with me anyway. Anyone interested in watching me would think I was a hermit.

[RKP5637]

3. LOL, I keep mine off or at home most of the time too ... either I'm a hermit or

I don't move much, just sit in one spot hours on end!

[dipsydoodle]

4. Only time a phone was always out with me in the car

was early 1990'ish when I had a neat fixed analogue phone plumbed into a Supra. That was in the days when 'phones still cost bundles and so did the calls. With its large conventional keypad I could dial without looking at at it and it had a brilliant hands free unit for talking too. It was paid for by the company anyway and what it earned paid for it just by being there. Apart from the addition of a #7 when numbers switched to digital I've still got the same number I had all those years ago.

I find the problem with smartphones to be their weight especially when I'm out dancing. IF I do take a phone I take an old compact LG Prada for which only my daughter has the number.

I suppose the only thing that would help if I was being watched would be they could tell me where my smartphone phone is when I can't find it.

[RKP5637]

6. I recall well buying one of those in the early 90's, and it belted out

a 5 watt signal ... driving in the mountains one night trying to locate a motel. I thought that was the last phone I would be buying for a very long time ... that sure worked out well. LOL

I think it was 85 cents a minute, something like that.

[ohheckyeah]

5. WTF?

"There are applications in the future which Quartz focused on but during the trial period we are only looking at anonymised and aggregated MAC data."

What applications in the future? What is the purpose of collecting this data?