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canopic jug writes:

While GPS tracking can follow your smartphone around a store with a precision of around 5 meters, tracking the phone's bluetooth device allows following its location to within a few centimeters. This relies on tracking built into phone "apps" but there are no easy ways to determine which ones are the culprits.

Most people aren’t aware they are being watched with beacons, but the “beacosystem” tracks millions of people every day. Beacons are placed at airports, malls, subways, buses, taxis, sporting arenas, gyms, hotels, hospitals, music festivals, cinemas and museums, and even on billboards.

In order to track you or trigger an action like a coupon or message to your phone, companies need you to install an app on your phone that will recognize the beacon in the store. Retailers (like Target and Walmart) that use Bluetooth beacons typically build tracking into their own apps. But retailers want to make sure most of their customers can be tracked — not just the ones that download their own particular app.

So a hidden industry of third-party location-marketing firms has proliferated in response. These companies take their beacon tracking code and bundle it into a toolkit developers can use.

[Updated 20190618_020843 UTC to restore links in first quoted paragraph. --martyb]

Earlier on SN:
Now Apps Can Track You Even After You Uninstall Them (2018)

Original Submission

1. "canopic jug" - https://soylentnews.org/~canopic+jug/
2. "tracking the phone's bluetooth device" - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html
3. "airports" - https://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2018/04/19/CMU-inks-deal-to-help-create-smartest-airport-on-the-planet-allegheny-technology/stories/201804190126
4. "malls" - https://www.bluetooth.com/bluetooth-resources?video=moa
5. "subways" - https://www.citylab.com/life/2015/06/how-to-get-your-bearings-when-exiting-a-subway-station/395966/
6. "buses" - https://www.nfcworld.com/2016/10/11/347767/proxama-to-create-uks-biggest-ble-beacon-advertising-network/
7. "taxis" - https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/proxama-aims-for-ubiquitous-ble-coverage-with-uk-taxi-deal
8. "sporting arenas" - https://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/location-trackers-bigger-sports-arenas/305211/
9. "gyms" - https://www.ymcalouisville.org/healthy-living/health-well-being-fitness/humana-vitality.html
10. "hotels" - https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/software-technology/23565.html
11. "hospitals" - https://unacast.s3.amazonaws.com/7a7f44d764d14917aed62e80039cb688.pdf
12. "music festivals" - https://kontakt.io/blog/beacons-at-music-festivals/
13. "cinemas" - https://geomarketing.com/beacons-at-the-movies-screenvision-and-mobiquity-networks-add-proximity-marketing-to-cinema-network
14. "museums" - https://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?15608
15. "billboards" - https://www.fastcompany.com/3033242/these-new-billboards-talk-to-your-smartphone
16. "Now Apps Can Track You Even After You Uninstall Them" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/10/24/2252221
17. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=34484

printed from SoylentNews, High Precision In-Store Tracking Via Bluetooth Beacons on 2024-04-25 14:41:12