[Silhouette]

I don't think this comment deserves downvotes. The arrival of 5G, and with it devices that can make their own external wireless connections, is a significant risk to consumer privacy. How it is used and regulated over the next few years could establish what is considered an acceptable standard for privacy for a long time afterwards, and it's clear which way a lot of device manufacturers are going to be pushing.

[wyldfire]

Affordable, embeddable 2g modems have existed for many years and have perpetrated some of the problems you're concerned about.

5G offers greater throughput but I don't think that tracking applications are only now enabled by 5G. Most 5G deployments are small cells in ultra dense areas and most snooping manufacturers would prefer the range of LTE.

[Silhouette]

I'm more concerned about the near-to-mid future in this respect.

It is still quite unusual to have embedded LTE modems and the like in consumer devices. Outside of a few relatively expensive product types, like cars and of course phones/tablets, I think most people would be surprised to find independent wireless connectivity in their consumer products and a lot of people would probably ask why it was there if it had no obvious purpose.

With 5G looking like it's going to be mainstream in most developed countries within a few years and promoted extensively as a technology for connected devices and applications using inter-device communication, it feels much more credible that both the infrastructure networks and the component manufacturers involved could offer pricing models that make incorporating connectivity cheaply into any device you feel like a realistic outcome.

My concern is that we drift into a situation where including local network communications, possibly sensors, and independent remote communications all in the same devices becomes routine, without anything close to adequate protections for security and privacy to go with it. Given that governments around here (UK/Europe in my case) are only just beginning to act on issues like right to repair and online privacy and have barely touched numerous other issues raised by modern tech and its capabilities, I'm extremely wary of a relatively uninformed public accepting a lot of hostile measures because they either don't know any better or (possibly correctly) assume that by that point there is nothing they can do about those measures even if they don't like them.

[mbreese]

I believe the point was that the types of ads or surveillance we are talking about here doesn’t strictly require 5G. It can work perfectly well with existing 4G/LTE networks and infrastructure. You could send a pretty good signature of what someone is watching by SMS if you really wanted to. The components to add that connectivity to consumer electronics is not that difficult or expensive to add from a BOM perspective.

I think the reason why we haven’t seen more of this vector being used isn’t because it is technologically unfeasible, but rather that there are easier ways to get a device connected.

[Silhouette]

I think the reason why we haven’t seen more of this vector being used isn’t because it is technologically unfeasible, but rather that there are easier ways to get a device connected.

This is true, but it's also something that right now consumers can at least do something about if they are well-informed, as noted by many commenters here referring to not allowing "smart" devices access to home WiFi networks and the like. I think the danger with 5G, and I'm including the surrounding culture and marketing under that umbrella here, is that the channel for remote communication becomes independent and so potentially impossible for consumers to detect, monitor or prevent, even if they are otherwise relatively well-informed about the technology.

[novok]

This is why I want to push for a right to 'networking off switch'. It's so simple on it's face and so hard to argue against, and so cheap to implement, so it's a good initial legislative baby step.

[Silhouette]

Hardware switches are a step in the right direction, but not enough. Some devices need network access to do their jobs, and there has to be a way to deter abusing that access for purposes that are user-hostile at the same time.

[yellowapple]

I doubt device manufacturers consider 5G to be a prerequisite for snarfing tracking data out of said devices and vomiting ads into them.