License Plate Cameras Will Soon Track Phones, Wearables, Infotainment, and Even Your Pets

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If data brokers can track the devices you take with you, they know where you live, where you go, and what you do. And the stakes are only poised to climb higher, now that surveillance companies that sell automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) are getting in on the game. Defense contractor Leonardo is promoting a new technology called SignalTrace that will package plate cameras with sensors that can scrape unique identifiers tied to your smart devices and make that data available to law enforcement.

A recent report by 404 Media dives into the objective of SignalTrace and how it’s being marketed to authorities. Police, border security, and other government agencies already comprise Leonardo’s customer base, and with this technology, those clients seek to correlate footage from these cameras to phones, tablets, wearables, AirTags, and, naturally, the electronics inside cars themselves.

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The goal here, as 404 sums up, is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant.” Previously, these cameras could track a car’s whereabouts at a given time. Throw in a glut of unique identifiers, though, and the job of tying an individual or multiple people to that vehicle becomes trivial—and not something anyone can simply opt out of.

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