Surveillance systems in science fiction and thriller movies always look far too futuristic, with some even sporting systems that can pick out a specific person in a crowded city street. Despite how fictional it might seem, researchers working at La Sapienza University of Rome say they’ve created a body-tracking system that can essentially take a fingerprint of your body, then track it using Wi-Fi signals.
The new system, which is called “WhoFi,” allows the surveilling party to not only “fingerprint” a person’s body, but it can also track them in physical space and even re-identify them in the same or different locations. The researchers behind the system shared their findings and accomplishments in a pre-print study shared on arXiv.
Of course, using Wi-Fi signals to map something isn’t exactly that new of technology. For years, we’ve been able to use Wi-Fi to create an 3D map of a building. But, doing the same thing to the human body was never possible, at least not until now. And while it does offer some intriguing possibilities for security, there’s also a very sinister side to this technology.
The pros and cons of ‘WhoFi’
First, let’s talk a little bit about the pros here. For starters, this kind of surveillance system could make it easier than ever to track and identify people that commit crimes. This could be especially handy in countries like America, where mass shootings have become a systemic issue over the years. With a system like WhoFi, authorities could fingerprint the individual, then track them more easily, especially since Wi-Fi is pretty much everywhere these days.
But, while that is a pro for the system, the downside is that any fingerprinted data would need to be exceptionally well secured. Otherwise, if bad actors were able to get a hold of it, they could use it to illegally track individuals for nefarious reasons. Additionally, there’s always the possibility that governments around the world might use the system to track their citizens, thus leading to less individual privacy.
At present, though, WhoFi is just a proof of concept. The entire system requires incredibly advanced software to implement, which means it isn’t going to be rolling out to our cities anytime soon. So, you don’t need to start preparing for a “Watch Dogs”-esque apocalypse just yet. Sure, it’s scary, but it’s not nearly as terrifying as the AI attack drone that some engineers built in a matter of hours just last year, or a drone that uses Wi-Fi to see through walls.
Plus, the system still has a ways to go before it could be considered actually reliable, if the research is any indication. Even with its successes, the data isn’t perfect. The researchers used a testing pool of 14 individuals, and while the system had a 95% accuracy rate, that small of a pool doesn’t mean the results would scale when looking for targeted individuals in a city of literal millions.
