New Surveillance Tech Just Dropped That'll Help Cops Track More Than Just Your License Plate

We've been in a sort of Big-Brother-is-always-watching state for a while now, but as if an Orwellian reality isn't concerning enough — now they're finding even more ways to keep tabs on you and everyone you know and love. A new device is coming soon, helping your favorite uniformed groups add even more information to your personal data set every time you leave the house.

Leonardo Company, known for its technology products, specifically automated license plate readers (ALPRs), has introduced a new device to collect more data from you while you're driving around town. And like ALPRs, you can't just "opt out." The devices are known as SignalTrace, or more specifically ELSAG SignalTrace, as first reported by 404 media, which looks to retrieve data from electronic devices like your phone, smartwatches, wireless devices, cars, even your air tags. The purpose of this device is, used in tandem with ALPRs, to help pair devices read from Bluetooth, RFID tags, and Wi-Fi, with your car and license plate information — making the combined set an even more traceable mixture of data.

The device collects the "electronic signature" of any consumer electronic devices that pass by. That information is then paired with an associated ALPR device, which can then associate specific devices with a license plate and vehicle. Leonardo Company described the technology as revealing "signatures frequently traveling together with an individual or vehicle, which can lead to the discovery of convoys and other movement and travel patterns" to help "create an additional data set to enhance records captured by LPR cameras in the area."

With this tech, if I were to pass my local area ALPR with an associated SignalTrace device, authorities could know that I operate a 2016 Mercedes-Benz CLS 400 in Michigan, have an Apple smartwatch, and an iPhone 16. That sort of "electronic fingerprint" can then be used to track my "suspect movements" or if "multiple suspects are traveling together."

As a part of their SignalTrace promotional material, Leonardo Company dedicated a section specifically to "Technology that Respects the Rights of Individuals." It insists that it does not decrypt or read the contents of the devices it obtains electronic signatures from. Rather, "It allows an electronic signature to be alerted on once it has been identified in the process of an investigation, and only in a case where a crime occurred."

But as we learned a few weeks back in talking about ALPRs and the abuses befalling the data collected there, the individuals determining the "investigation" and the "crime" have a lot of wiggle room. It only takes one person with an axe to grind or questionable motives to falsify a search and access information that isn't technically legal to obtain. How do we know? It's happened a lot, across the country. Hell, 404 Media published another article today about how cops continue to get arrested for using this data to stalk people for their own personal agendas.

The line between public information has become increasingly blurred as new tracking devices with little-to-no restrictions emerge, further commodifying humans as sets of data points, useful only if we can be tracked.