The Center for Democracy and Technology and the National Network to End Domestic Violence are praising Apple and Google for releasing a joint standards proposal to prevent the unauthorized use of Bluetooth location tracking devices.
According to a release by the CDT, this announcement comes after CDT and NNEDV asked businesses to take actions to reduce the abuse of Bluetooth tracking devices. The organizations have been working together to create a solution based on a set of key components that would help with protection. The release said it is a “critical first step” towards adopting a standard to reduce the risks with Bluetooth location trackers.
“Today’s announcement of draft best practices and protocols to detect unknown trackers is a welcome step," said Alexandra Reeve Givens, CDT's president and CEO. "It promises to make these devices more detectable and reduce the likelihood that they will be used to track people without their knowledge. A key element to reducing misuse is a universal, platform-level solution that is able to detect trackers made by different companies on the variety of smartphones that people use every day.”
“There is still much more work to be done to standardize, implement, and adopt protocols and software for detecting and disabling location trackers used for unwanted tracking," added Givens. "We encourage device manufacturers, platform developers, and civil society organizations to collaborate in that effort.”
Senior Director of the Safety Net Project of NNEDV Erica Olsen said that the unwanted surveillance is a common tactic of abuse, and advocates and technology companies need to work together to minimize any misuse.
“These draft standards to allow detection of unwanted trackers is a significant step forward in the work to increase safety and privacy,” Olsen said. “Solutions need to be grounded in universal standards to address the issue from the point of design and keep the burden of identifying trackers off the people who are being tracked. We appreciate the work Apple and Google are doing together to address the misuse of bluetooth tracking devices. We encourage others involved in this industry to join these efforts to increase privacy and safety for all.”
