The world is becoming a highly technological place, and while for the most part this has made people’s lives a lot better than they used to be the fact of the matter is that it has created a lot of scary scenarios as well. A good example of this can be seen in a recent research that was conducted by a number of people working at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California.
The research indicated that WiFi signals could be used to locate people through hard walls, something that has been developing for quite some time now. Basically the WiFi signals will be used to analyze someone’s walking gait, and if the gait matches what is on record then this would be a successful identification which would make it possible to locate that person time and time again.
WiFi signals have been used previously to 3D map a room through a hard wall, though this is the first time that people have been successfully identified using nothing but the WiFi signals that are in their rooms. The technique is referred to as Cross Modal Identification, and it has a lot of potential uses particularly in the field of law enforcement.
While the law enforcement aspects of this technology are quite useful if you think about it, one thing that people would be concerned about is how this technology could potentially end up infringing on their personal freedoms, rights and privacy. If the tech ends up in the wrong hands it could be disastrous because of the fact that pretty much everyone uses WiFi in order to access the internet.
In spite of the concerns of the general public, this technology will probably be researched even further, so only time will tell how far people would be able to take this.
Read next: Most Americans can't recognize 2FA, HTTPS, or private browsing
Featured photo: Unsplash / Jadon Kelly
The research indicated that WiFi signals could be used to locate people through hard walls, something that has been developing for quite some time now. Basically the WiFi signals will be used to analyze someone’s walking gait, and if the gait matches what is on record then this would be a successful identification which would make it possible to locate that person time and time again.
WiFi signals have been used previously to 3D map a room through a hard wall, though this is the first time that people have been successfully identified using nothing but the WiFi signals that are in their rooms. The technique is referred to as Cross Modal Identification, and it has a lot of potential uses particularly in the field of law enforcement.
While the law enforcement aspects of this technology are quite useful if you think about it, one thing that people would be concerned about is how this technology could potentially end up infringing on their personal freedoms, rights and privacy. If the tech ends up in the wrong hands it could be disastrous because of the fact that pretty much everyone uses WiFi in order to access the internet.
In spite of the concerns of the general public, this technology will probably be researched even further, so only time will tell how far people would be able to take this.
Read next: Most Americans can't recognize 2FA, HTTPS, or private browsing
Featured photo: Unsplash / Jadon Kelly
