We no longer need to be using a mobile phone, nor are we being caught by a surveillance chamber, to be tracked: it is enough to reach a Wi-Fi signal.
A team of researchers at La Sapienza University in Rome has created a system that allows you to identify anyone using only the way Body disturbs a wi-fi signal – No devices, no images – and no consent need.
The new system, properly called WhoFionly needs the disturbance of the signal that the body causes when we walk through a room with wi-fi. And it works surprisingly well, says the.
“When a Wi-Fi signal propagates through an environment, its wave form is changed by the presence and physical characteristics of objects and people along their way, ”wrote the researchers in their, recently pre-published in Arxiv.“ These changes contain rich biometric information“.
Ours privacy It has suffered significant erosion over the last few years. Since the facial recognition in public spaces until applications that Mark each movement of ourthe tools that observe us have become more advanced-and harder to detect.
But while most security systems use our mobile phone, face or password to identify us, Wi-Fi detection now presented in this study uses simply the way we move.
Whenever a Wi-Fi sign travels through a room, he points out on the walls, furniture, and yes, in human bodies.
The result is a Small Changes Waterfall in the amplitude and phase of the signal, known as Channel State Information (CSI). This data is usually used to solve wireless connection problems. But it can become a personal signature.
The Whofi System catches these invisible disturbances and feeds them in a deep neural network, trained to recognize and remember the way each body disturbs a signal distinctly. You don’t have to interact with a person at all-you just need it to pass around a Wi-Fi signal.
Using a public database called Ntu-fiwhich recorded the way Volunteers changed Wi-Fi signals as they walked in different clothing settings – with and without backpacks, coats and overcoming – the researchers found that their system could correctly identify individuals with up to 95.5 % accuracy.
Preservation or threat to privacy?
High -tech surveillance technologies are a two -edged knife, note o. On the one hand, we need to have sophisticated devices to detect suspicious behaviors and alert the authorities. But, on the other, there is a need to Protect individual privacy.
Thus, balancing public safety and individual freedoms is a constant challenge for innovators and political decision makers.
At first glance, the whoi creators have their invention as a most conscious alternative of privacy to chambers -based systems.
“By enjoying non-visual biometric characteristics Incorporated into the Wi-Fi CSI, ”they write,“ This study offers a privacy and robust preservation approach to Wi-Fi-based re-Did. ”
Investigators emphasize that Wi-Fi signals do not capture imagesdo not record conversations or see what we are wearing. They simply capture the way our body subtly distorts radio waves.
And unlike the cameras, Wi-Fi detection Works in darknessthrough walls and in low visibility conditions.
But this same advantage of “privacy” raises red flags Immediate: the potential for misuse It is as vast as the modern wireless landscape.
Wi-Fi networks are practically everywhereand as more devices adopt Wi-Fi 6, 7 and 8-which support more refined CSI measurements-this type of tracking becomes even easier.
Unlike a camera on the wall or a security guard at the door, Wi-Fi surveillance It can be invisible: We may never know that it is there and yet track us.
For now, researchers emphasize that Your work is academic: There are no commercial plans, no government implementations. Yet.
But Wi-Fi detection It is a growing field. Is already being explored for applications in the Detection of falls, gesture recognitionpresence detection and even heart rate measurement. This means that the laboratory jump to the living room (or airport, or school) It can be short.
“The encouraging results achieved confirm the viability of Wi-Fi signals as a robust biometric mode and preservation of privacy, ”concludes the authors.“ And position this study as a significant step forward in the development of signal-based re-ni systems. ”
But it also raises a simple question: if Wi-Fi can recognize you without your knowledge, Anonymity is still possible?
