Superman Isn’t the Only One with X-Ray Vision: Apparently, Your Wi-Fi Can See Through Walls Too

​We are reminded of a Vice story in 2023 that should have received much more attention than it did. Then again, it can be challenging to keep up when new threats to privacy seem to emerge daily.
 
That story, with a very recent twist, is thus: It turns out that Wi-Fi is capable of sensing human presence, potentially even pinpointing location, determining posture/position, and tracking movement. Unsurprisingly, the underlying technology is courtesy of Facebook’s AI team, using optical methods like cameras. Now, Carnegie-Mellon researchers have realized that Wi-Fi is the perfect vehicle for solving “limitations” with the original optical approach, limitations such as not being able to see people in the dark or behind furniture.
 
And that’s not creepy at all, is it?
 
Call us old-fashioned but we just have the feeling that terrible things could come from being able to spy on people in the dark. And we unequivocally declare that the rudimentary nature of what Carnegie-Mellon has “accomplished” won’t remain that way for long. Believe us when we say, technologists will figure this out and in very short order. Because, wouldn’t you know it, Carnegie-Mellon’s iteration is just the latest in a long line of “Wi-Fi sensing” advancements. According to MIT, it’s a broad field with the potential to “usher in new forms of monitoring.” They predict that in effect it’s the future of motion detection technology.
 
Only that future is now. Verizon, Origin Wireless, Cognitive Systems Corporation, AXIS, and Infineon all have services on offer that use some form of Wi-Fi sensing. The goals – “health metrics,” “elder safety,” “home security” – sound commendable, as is always the case with privacy incursions and surveillance overreach. The commercial and social justifications are also appealing, even compelling. But what happens when someone with less-than-wholesome intentions gains access? To say that we need robust guardrails around such technology is the epitome of understatement.
 
And the time to build those guardrails for private and public use of this technology? Probably 2023.

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