I wouldn’t be concern about the MAC addresses but about the app mentioned in the article. Why do you need an app for this? What data will it collect about you?
To be fair (op seems tech illiterate but he might have a point) you could track MAC addresses. My phone randomise my MAC but maybe every phone doesn’t ?
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 weeks ago
What will tracking MACs give them? They will now that such and such MAC address connected to such and such WiFi router. What will they do with it? What is the risk here?
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Your MAC is unique to your *physical" device so there’s that, also you could track movement globally. I guess there are other things I’m not thinking about but 2 just on top of my head is clearly 2 too many IMO.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 weeks ago
I get that but what the European Commission would do with this info? They would be able to tell that you visited Berlin in May or that you went to Portugal in June. And… what? They will not sell this data to advertisers because that would be just stupid. Would they share this data with police? For what purpose? Would Ursula von der Leyen use it to track her political opponents? See where they went on holiday? What would be the point?
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If the ability to track citizens doesn’t ring a bell for you I have a bridge to sell…
Of course it will be abused, not by the king of Spain but surely by other more subtle and indirect means. Sometimes it’s the paranoia of a leader, look up Stasi in East Germany, they knew loads about their citizens, and they used it in lots of bad ways.
So freedom of not being tracked is something you shouldn’t not want because why allow it in the first place?
Kage@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
AFAIK every semi-modern phone does mac address randomisation now