WiFi: WiFi can silently spy on you, a shocking revelation in a new study...

Common WiFi routers can track your identity and movements without your knowledge, a new study claims. According to the study, the beamforming feedback information (BFI) used is broadcast without encryption and can be captured by any device. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany found that BFI can identify people moving in a room with 99.5% accuracy. This threat is further compounded by the fact that it requires neither network hacking nor the WiFi password.

How this WiFi feature became a new weapon for surveillance
Beamforming is a feature in modern WiFi standards that helps transmit signals more efficiently to devices. To do this, smartphones and laptops continuously send small reports about their perception of the wireless channel. This beamforming feedback information, or BFI, is completely unencrypted. The study found that this BFI can easily be captured by any nearby device and could be misused for identification and movement tracking.

How the Study Was Conducted

Researchers created a WiFi setup with two access points and four listening points on the 6 GHz band. They recorded 197 volunteers walking normally, briskly, passing through a turnstile, and carrying bags or crates. Both BFI and CSI data were processed in a simple neural network. The results were astonishing—using BFI alone, the model identified over 160 people with 99.5% accuracy, better than CSI.

Why BFI is becoming more dangerous than CCTV

Researchers noted that while CSI requires special hardware and firmware to achieve, BFI is available from every common WiFi router. This makes it a serious privacy threat. While CCTV cameras make their presence known, WiFi access points are discreetly installed in ceilings or corners. People try to avoid cameras, but ignore the presence of WiFi. This creates an inverse panopticon-like environment where people believe they are unseen, while they are constantly being profiled.

What else can be tracked after identification? How great is the threat?
According to the study, once a system establishes a person's identity through their movements, all their movements, activities, and behaviors can be linked to that identity over time. This increases privacy risks exponentially, even if the person's real name is unknown. Researchers caution that effective security measures against BFI have not yet been developed. Existing noise-based mitigation techniques also focus mostly on CSI, while the greater threat is from BFI.

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