The detection of disturbances in Wi-Fi signals for motion sensing applications – such as detecting the movement of a person through a room – is beginning to gain market entry as a service among home broadband ISPs. But Wi-Fi sensing has also recently been criticised for constituting a potential breach of personal privacy. With a better understanding of the technology and its capabilities – even extrapolating well into the future – it is hard to see how Wi-Fi sensing is somehow a threat to personal security, experts say.
Wi-Fi sensing is about interpreting changes in Wi-Fi signals within a space to detect movement – such as when a person gets out of bed to use the bathroom. But it is next to impossible to determine anything but basic movement, its rough location within a room, and whether the moving object is a pet or a human being, experts say.
“Linking a Wi-Fi sensing signal to an identifiable person is at this point science fiction,” says Taj Manku, CEO of Wi-Fi sensing technology leader, Cognitive Systems. “In fact, one of the benefits of WiFi Motion is its inherent privacy compared to other home monitoring solutions that rely on cameras and microphones.” Cognitive is currently providing Wi-Fi sensing technology to dozens of service providers as a home monitoring solution – read more here.
The service is delivered via a service-provider app, which notifies consumers of unlawful, unexpected motion, or even a lack of expected motion, Cognitive says, such as when kids don’t arrive home after school at the expected time.
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