New York City quickly announced it would get rid of devices that could turn phone booths into cellphone trackers after the program was revealed this morning.
A Buzzfeed investigation published today found that the city allowed 500 radio transmitters, called “beacons,” to be installed in pay phone booths, apparently thickly concentrated in lower and mid-Manhattan. A few hours later, the Mayor’s office said they would have them removed.
Though they could be woven into a location-aware advertising network, the beacons are there for maintenance notifications only and are not yet being used for commercial purposes, according to Titan, the firm that runs the advertising displays for thousands of city phone booths. There was no public announcement when the devices were installed.
Titan uses beacons made by a company called Gimbal, which connect with phones and have the ability to send notifications – for instance, a store might use them to alert customers to discounts – and to collect data.
In order for a Gimbal beacon to pick it up, a smartphone must have Bluetooth enabled, and must also have a third-party app that uses Bluetooth beacon technology, referred to variously as “Bluetooth Low Energy,” “Bluetooth LE,” or “iBeacon.” The owner would, in theory at least, have also had to “opt-in” to the service when installing said app — although such permission might just look like the familiar, innocuous-sounding “[This app] would like to send you notifications,” which was the prompt presented to Forbes’ Kashmir Hill when installing a Gimbal-friendly app from the Tribeca Film Festival.
If you do connect to its Bluetooth beacons, Gimbal is supposed to anonymize your information before sending it to customers — no name or email address — but it can still see when and where you passed a beacon. In some cases, Buzzfeed reported, Gimbal can “collect data about the websites you visit, the apps on your phone, and the ‘frequency and duration of app usage,’” and develop profiles of users, guessing at your age, gender, ethnicity, income, interests, and where you spend your time.
Titan confirmed to Buzzfeed that it had installed beacons in other cities, but wouldn’t say which.
Stores have been experimenting with methods of tracking customer behavior via their cellphones’ Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, but bringing the kind of shopper surveillance that is common online to the physical world seems to bother people. One coffee chain in San Francisco stopped doing so after its patrons protested. The New York Times reported last year that Nordstrom abandoned an experiment in following customers’ movements around the store in part because people found it troubling.
In June, Apple introduced a “randomization” feature that was supposed to keep iPhones untraceable as they searched for Wi-Fi connections in the area, in order to avoid that kind of retail tracking. But researchers found that feature only worked for the newest generation of iPhones, and even then, only if the phone was asleep and “location” capabilities were turned off for all apps.
In short, the simplest way to avoid physical tracking of your cellphone by ad networks is to turn off your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when out walking around.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
The ‘battery in the cell phone’ thing is as old as Jack Bauer. So, you throw it away, you stop using your car’s GPS (if it’s not built in) and you never connect your new Win8 laptop to the web : that should secure you from the watchers, right ?…
Following Europe, where this trend has been implementing for a decade, the US will soon be introducing RFID chip cards for every possible usage. Soon, a chip similar to that equipping credit cards will make its appearance on bus tickets, driver IDs, social security cards, etc. In some European countries, an e-ID chip card is already compulsory, and everyone is required by law to carry it at all times.
Simultaneously, mirroring the pseudo-need for larger mobile content, as well as anticipating Mountain View’s Orwellian ‘4th Eye’, telcom providers are relentlessly increasing the level of energy their ‘beacons’ beam up and down (from 1G to 4G in a decade, announcing many more “G” ‘s to come…).
Here’ s what I want to know :
1/ How does one ‘turn something off’ that isn’t really hardware and that one can’t ‘turn on’, and leave behind something the law requires one to carry ?
2/ From which distance can a modern ‘beacon’ locate an ‘independent (unrelated to standard telcom) chip’ that isn’t supported by its own energy source ?
3/ Which amount of energy does it require to sweep an entire neighborhood for geolocation of weak-signal microchips carriers only ?
4/ Now that it is a known fact all major intel agency are interfering with the manufacturers’ hardware (from conception, or after end-user purchase) and software (through structural backdoors, or new malware), with or without their consent, are those ‘beacons’ equipped with the technology allowing them to perform multiple tasks for various parties, including ones the providers are unaware of / ill-informed about, or simply chose to ignore, even today ?
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/10/core-secrets/
“In short, the simplest way to avoid physical tracking of your cellphone by ad networks is to turn off your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when out walking around.”
Just a quick heads up to those that are interested in avoiding physical tracking via your cellular devices, you should be aware that only turning off your Wifi and Bluetooth is *not* enough. Many of these tracking systems also collect the unique “pings” that your cell phone continuously communicates back and forth to the cellular network.
For example, here’s how one company offering such a service describes how they do it, How does Path Intelligence gather data?
…and if you want even more of that warm feeling of “security” that only a total surveillance state can deliver, watch their promotional video. Yikes!
Anyway, to ensure your phone does not provide your physical location, you must do one of the following:
~ remove the battery (just turning it off would probably work for most ad networks, but will definitely not prevent it from being physically tracked by others – see Answer 2 here)
~ place it in a high quality – personally tested – faraday bag (I recommend the Black Hole by EDECDF)
~ just leave it at home.
Very interesting, Twelve Triple Three —
Companies such as Gimbal and Path Intelligence have no shame. It made me sick to look at those Path execs extolling their product. Why is it ok for digital ads to track us? Before digital those print, radio and tv ads were just “there” and businesses seemed to do all right. And how is it that these beacons have been installed in some cities – with what – NO public debate or disclosure. It’s shameful!
And my cheap-as-they-come Tracphone is off until “I” want to make a call. Technology is here to serve me not enslave me. Have fun.
Thanks Cora, for this report and thanks to BuzzFeed for the investigation.
Does the tracking ever end? It should be really concerning that this technology has been employed in other, unnamed cities. I hope someone investigates and brings them to light! And I hope that people object strongly.
The tracking could potentially be useful. For example, NY City might automatically turn the lights to green as you approached. Or it could have a police squad car clear away undesirables on your route. Or stores that were closed could open as you arrived at the door.
Alternatively, lights could turn to red, police could stop and search you and stores would close as you approached.
This could all be done with complete privacy, based only on your credit rating as broadcast by your phone.
Luddites of course will reject this technology. But of course, by virtue of not carrying a phone, they will be placed in the most undesirable category of all.
“Luddites … will be placed in the most undesirable category of all.”
Ah, my good sir, you are not looking quite far enough ahead. We Luddites will eventually become like slaves of days past: so insignificant that our masters will have no sense of modesty in our presence. Without an electronic identity, we will not be placed in any category at all. We will be considered subhuman, and will move with near impunity amongst our “betters,” free to do as we please thanks to our digital invisibility. How can we be punished if the Great Database cannot process our data type?
I imagine that eventually the iPeople will modify their taxonomy, and we will be granted the much groovier name of “Morlocks.”
“How can we be punished if the Great Database cannot process our data type?”
Answer : CCTV and face recognition
Interesting. If you walk into a phonebooth and have an active cellphone on you, someone might wonder why?
Thank you Buzzfeed. All those .gifs might pay off for us in the end.
OK so that is why there are still payphones in Manhattan.
Some people do not want mobiles