Planning to attend the Rock Werchter music festival in Belgium this weekend? You may want to disable Bluetooth on your phone unless you want your movements tracked all over the festival site.

According to a report from Reuters, researchers from the University of Ghent in Belgium have installed 36 Bluetooth receivers around the festival grounds, as well as additional units along the roads and at bus stops, to track the movements of concert attendees.  While the research team assures the public that no personal data is being collected, it still feels just a little too much like something out of George Orwell’s tale of a society watched over by “Big Brother”, 1984.

Bluetooth has become a common feature in many cellular phones as people use it to connect wireless headsets to their phones.  While there have been some experiments over the years with advertising placements that could transmit data to your phone when you stood in front of the ad, this is the first time that we have heard of it being used to track your movements around a given location.  In this particular experiment, the scanners are tracking a phone’s Media Access Control address (MAC address), which can not be traced back to a phone number or personal data, so no actual information is being exchanged beyond ‘this MAC address has now entered the falafel tent.”

As to why anyone would want to use this technology, Nico Van de Weghe, a member of the University of Ghent’s research team, explained to Reuters that, ”Tracking movements via Bluetooth could become very interesting. It could help retailers keep track of the number of customers numbers at different times.”  It apparently also could be used by security teams to track suspicious movements, as well as by event organizers in case of an emergency evacuation.

The only flaw I see with this entire concept, beyond the creepy factor, is that not everyone leaves their Bluetooth receiver on at all times.  It is a well-known way to drain your cell phone’s battery faster, so most people leave them off a good portion of the time.  What if someone the researchers have been tracking all day decides to turn off their Bluetooth or their phone in the middle of the day?  Will they think the person left the site leading to skewed data on the number of attendees?  It just doesn’t seem like a very effective way of tracking people as it is completely voluntary and dependent on the mood of the participant.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm under Cell phones.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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