Austin Airport Tracks Cell Phones To Measure Security Line Wait

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 23, 2014 @04:21AM from the making-a-list-checking-it-twice dept.

jfruh writes If you get into the TSA security line at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, you'll see monitors telling you how long your wait will be — and if you have a phone with Wi-Fi enabled, you're helping the airport come up with that number. A system implemented by Cisco tracks the MAC addresses of phones searching for Wi-Fi networks and sees how long it takes those phones to traverse the line, giving a sense of how quickly things are moving. While this is useful information to have, the privacy implications are a bit unsettling.

2 of 168 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Who cares by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-23 04:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Modern IOS versions randomize the MAC used for passive wifi scans. I'd imagine android is also doing the same.
1. Re:Who cares by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-23 05:17 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Modern IOS versions randomize the MAC used for passive wifi scans. I'd imagine android is also doing the same.
  Android is all about tracking everything you do to send you ads, so I doubt it's doing the same. I should check mine sometime.
  Just checked with my LG G3, I can confirm MAC is being randomized for passive scans.