Forget Flock — this system could let police track your car with help from your phone

Imagine a world where the police can identify people on the move not just by their license plate, but also the electronic devices that are traveling with them. This is exactly what a new sensor system from Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions is designed to achieve.

The technology is aptly named SignalTrace, and it is designed to detect Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID signals being emitted from nearby devices (via ArsTechnica). Leonardo’s idea is to deploy these sensors alongside automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras like those from Flock.

Here’s how tracking would theoretically work: Let’s say you drive to work every single day, and there’s an ALPR camera on the way. It recognizes your license plate and registers it every day. At the same time, an accompanying SignalTrace sensor at the same location could pick up electronic signals being emitted from your devices. This can include your phone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, and more.

Over time, the system, which could be analyzing both the ALPR camera’s data and SignalTrace’s data, would spot the recurring pattern of the group of electronics repeatedly appearing with your vehicle.

This is where things get blurry from a privacy standpoint.

Leonardo says that SignalTrace does not identify individuals or create a database of citizens based on their devices. “The system only collects electronic signatures. Those electronic signatures, by themselves, do not identify a person,” wrote the company.

The counterpoint to Leonardo’s argument is arguably in the company’s statement itself. It says that electronic signatures “by themselves” do not identify a person. That’s true, but SignalTrace isn’t designed to work by itself. It is designed to work alongside ALPR cameras.

Given the recurring pattern of a group of devices always appearing alongside a license plate, the electronic signatures could be associated with the vehicle. Through a quick vehicle registration check, those electronic signatures could potentially be tied to an identity. When placed in the hands of a nefarious officer, the tech could potentially be abused to monitor a person’s movements.

What could SignalTrace be used for?

Putting the privacy concerns on the back burner for a moment, the technology does have legitimate law-enforcement uses.

For example, let’s say the police are looking for a specific vehicle in connection to a crime and have identified its license plate. Via SignalTrace, they could check all the electronic signatures the license plate has been spotted with in the past, especially the ones that appear constantly.

This could give investigators another way to track the vehicle, even if the driver changes the plate or covers it to avoid ALPR camera detection.

The same capability, however, can be a privacy concern.

Let’s say the electronic signatures that the police are looking for one day appear in a completely different vehicle. This vehicle could be owned by the person’s spouse, partner, sibling, friend, or even a coworker who’s simply giving the person of interest a ride.

Because the electronic signature has already been associated with a vehicle the police are tracking, the appearance of the same signals in a different vehicle could flag the new vehicle too, despite the owner of the second vehicle having nothing to do with the crime.

So while SignalTrace does give police an upper hand during investigations, it could also be a way to turn the very devices we carry every day into trackers.

It’s worth noting that SignalTrace isn’t out in the real world just yet, but Leonardo is actively pitching it to law-enforcement agencies as an addition to its ALPR systems. Whether the tech becomes a core addition to police surveillance systems remains to be seen.