Is That Traffic Light Tracking You? A Case Study on a Municipal Surveillance Technology in Seattle

WiFi/Bluetooth MAC address collection can be used for the purpose of real-time travel calculations for traffic engineering. Seattle is one such city to have deployed this technology. However, it also raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns. Here there are five broad categories of gaps found by the public regarding the deployment of this technology: 1) missing information; 2) technical implementation; 3) contractual; 4) data management; and 5) bigger picture. Various considerations are also discussed spanning alternative technologies, MAC address randomization, difficulties with MAC address anonymization, mobile device model identification, and harms from mass location surveillance. As of this article's revision submission (Jan. 15, 2021), this technology is deployed within Seattle but the Seattle City Council has not yet contemplated nor retroactively approved of its use.