Forget Flock — this system could let police track your car with help from your phone

Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions has unveiled a new system called SignalTrace that could enable police to track vehicles by monitoring electronic signals from smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, and other nearby devices. The technology aims to complement existing automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras, like those from Flock, to provide law enforcement with an additional layer of surveillance.

While Leonardo claims the system does not individually identify people, recurring patterns of device signatures could potentially be linked to specific vehicles and their registered owners. This innovative approach could prove invaluable in tracking vehicles that elude detection by license plate cameras, yet it also raises concerns about potential privacy violations, especially in cases where innocent individuals might be mistakenly flagged due to their devices being present in vehicles related to an ongoing investigation.