[transpute]

> Because mmWave radar doesn’t process visual light, what it sees is not personally identifiable.

With machine learning improvements, identification and more are possible. From a 2021 paper on IEEE 802.11bf Wi-Fi Sensing, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf

> Indeed, it has been shown that SENS-based classifiers can infer privacy-critical information such as keyboard typing, gesture recognition and activity tracking ... since Wi- Fi signals can penetrate hard objects and can be used without the presence of light, end-users may not even realize they are being tracked .. individuals should be provided the opportunity to opt out of SENS services – to avoid being monitored and tracked by the Wi-Fi devices around them. This would require the widespread introduction of reliable SENS algorithm for human or animal identification.

Prior discussion of WiFi Sensing:

Jan 2022, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587

May 2021, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123493

400+ research papers on wireless activity sensing, showing steady improvement in detection techniques, https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/#external

Today, specialist devices or targeted attacks can monitor human activity through walls and closed doors. But that's a world away from the ubiquitous transparency scheduled for commodity WiFi 7 in 2024. If regulators or lawyers don't step in, homes and some businesses may need RF shielding.

[parsimo2010]

Right on. The whole "mm wave radar is detail rich but gives privacy" line is a contradiction. Any data that is detailed enough to be useful is detailed enough to be a privacy concern. While it might not be the same as leaking nude photos from someone's camera, radar data is something that needs to be carefully thought out. Radar data from a car can provide information about people's driving behavior even without location data- do they follow too close, do they make reckless lane changes into tight spots, do they exceed the regular flowing traffic speed, etc. Radar data from inside a building used to track people can tell when you are at your desk or somewhere else, who you congregate with in the break room, how long you spend in the bathroom, etc. If it's detailed enough to assist you, that data can also be used to monitor you.

[smegsicle]

> leaking nude photos from someone's camera

whatever happened to that meme about common ccd cameras picking up uv images that make out details through eg swimsuits, but hopefully filtered and removed in software before making it to the images?

[_Microft]

Cameras usually include an infrared filter (also called a "hot mirror" or "IR cut") that reflects infrared radiation. Mostly because not blocking IR leads to wrong colours for scenes like sunsets where a disproportionate amount of IR radiation is there.

Many smartphones (used to?) exclude this filter on the selfie-camera because no matter how hot you think you might be, it's not going to be an issue.

If you want to check an IR remote for function, try with the selfie camera of your phone and not the normal one and make sure you are trying in a dark environment because the LED on the remote is going to be rather dim either way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_mirror

[equalsione]

As an aside, the IR filter is often removed[0] from many cameras when using them for astrophotography. Canon[1] sell dedicated astro cameras that are modified in this way, along with other modifications.

[0] - https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/imaging-foundati... [1] - https://www.canon.co.uk/cameras/eos-ra/

[waste_monk]

I recall the panic over that back in in the day, IIRC it was near-visible infra-red, not UV - if you didn't have sufficient IR filtering over the sensor, were using flash (and the flash included a decent amount of IR), and the subject was wearing something thin, you'd potentially get unintended skin detail with the IR reflection.

As I understand more or less a solved problem on modern cameras such as on your smartphone... instead of a bulb you tend to have white LED for your flash that doesn't really give off useful (any?) IR, and there's better/more consistent IR filtering on the sensor.

[consp]

I still have a Sony CD camera (as in disk not ccd) which has near IR and a IR led. Fun to play with for night recording (its intended use) and you can see though thin clothes a tiny bit but range is very limited. Skin patterns much less due to lacking contrast. Resolution in that mode is also lacking so detail is not really a thing. I can understand the problem and I think that is the reason my IR camera in my laptop has a moire pattern in the hardware to make it almost useless to the common eye. But that last part is just a guess.

[mark-r]

Sony was forced to cripple the "night vision" feature of some cameras because it was too easy to abuse to see through clothing.

[lgats]

it’s likely this was actually infrared imaging capabilities

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/15/21259723/oneplus-8-pro-x-...

[Ancapistani]

UV or IR?

If it’s IR… I have a PVS-14, I’ll have to dig one of my wife’s swimsuits out of the closet and see if it’s transparent. I’m curious.

[ctdonath]

Those camera manufacturers quickly eliminated that capability, likely via optical filtering. That was about 20 years ago. Consumer-grade cameras do not have that ability nowadays (bad publicity).

[dheera]

Why not just fix the swimsuits? Seems like a much more straightforward solution.

[doctor_eval]

The problem was not swimsuits. It was any clothing that was relatively thin. Swimsuits was just an example.

In any case why would we be required to don tinfoil suits every time we go to the airport?

[iszomer]

50/50 on privacy. Sure, privacy is cool but I pity the people whom must endure seeing the shapely flabs and curves of everyday people. That's got to have a toll on anyone's psych over time, as an "occupational hazard".

[dheera]

I mean, the material has a bug that wasn't discovered until recently, so we fix the bug and re-deploy the material. It's that simple. Just embed some carbon fibers or something in the swim suit, there are tons of ways to block UV.

It's like if your car seatbelts have a bug you issue a product recall. Same thing.

[VBprogrammer]

It would seem easier and more efficient to fix the cultural taboos around nudity and over-sexualisation.

Breastfeeding mothers would be collateral winners of that change for example.

[doctor_eval]

You do realise that you have to add this to every swimsuit on the planet, right? And all other clothes that may exhibit it this behaviour?

It is not the material that’s buggy, it’s new technology which can look under clothes and damage privacy that’s the problem.

[iSnow]

Or just add a near infrared filter to cameras. Much easier and can even be mandated by law if necessary.

[lobocinza]

Hardware deployment is order of magnitudes more costly than software.

[hornej]

My main point is the data is anonymous at source. I think having control over how that data is correlated back to an individual is important

[transpute]

Wi-Fi light bulb won CES 2022 award, expected to ship in 4Q 2022. Logs of detailed human activity, in-room 3D location and timestamps can tell a story over time. https://us.sengled.com/blogs/news/the-biggest-ces-2022-smart...

> We earned this year’s award for a product targeted to launch in the fourth quarter: our Smart Health Monitoring Light. Featuring a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Mesh dual chip, the bulb will provide a number of features, including biometric measurement tracking of heart rate, body temperature, and other vital signs, as well as sleep tracking. By connecting multiple bulbs via Bluetooth Mesh and creating a virtual map across your home, this product can even help detect human behavior and determine if someone has fallen and then send for help.

[femto]

With decent processing a mm-wave picture would be good enough that you could recognise a person, so I don't think there is any inherent anonymity. The image resolution is a function of both wavelength and aperture and a mm-wave antenna can extend over a significant number of wavelengths (ie. large aperture). A stable timebase would further allow processing across time, enabling synthetic aperture.

Also, a person is not a randomly shaped object. If the processing is specifically tuned to detecting and identifying people an awful lot of degrees of freedom can be eliminated, giving more detail in those features that do identify a person.

[parsimo2010]

I think you are still off about the privacy aspect. At the source, a return from a single radar pulse is pretty uninformative. But a single pixel on a camera sensor is also uninformative. Even at the source, an aggregated set of radar returns is still a privacy concern on the level of an aggregated set of camera pixel values. Not operating in the light domain doesn’t make the privacy concerns go away, it just means that laypeople aren’t going to understand the risks as intuitively.

[spacexsucks]

No its not. There is no anonymity at source. Once this is there, it will be coupled with other PII. Anything otherwise is plain foolish and lunacy

[john567]

My reaction as well. Given how many ways there are to uniquely identify individuals this isn't a selling point for the tech. It's just a different kind of camera and of course it can identify people it's just that it will not reproduce a picture of people's faces to do so.

[rvnx]

Not yet, because the resolution is too small for now but you can count on progress. Thinking more globally, couldn't 5G mmWave make it possible to get to know exactly how people are moving ? (let's say, someone gets out of his house, the government can know it in realtime, even without a phone, because the mmWave could map its position).

[throwaway0a5e]

>couldn't 5G mmWave make it possible to get to know exactly how people are moving

If you've got the signal density to illuminate the stuff you want to look at there's no reason you couldn't.

[waterproof]

Yeah. Up front they say:

> what it sees is not personally identifiable

Then later on in the article:

> [the new HomePod could] [detect] the user's identity based on their gait, height, and physical profile

Uh-huh.

…did they read their own article?

[kwertyoowiyop]

It just depends on whether they’re talking to Congress or the Police.

[hwillis]

What an insane thing to say. 60 GHz is more than enough to get completely recognizable images with a sufficient transceiver

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Millimeter-wave-40-60GHz...

There's a huge difference between a phased array scanner and the transceivers described in the OP, but mm waves are absolutely not "privacy-preserving"

[KaiserPro]

I was about to come and say the same thing.

Its perfectly possible to create feature descriptors for 60gig radar, and use it to image rooms, things and possibly people.

Its a privacy problem we currently are trying to overcome in AR. The problem is that because feature descriptors are so small, researchers assume that they don't contain PII. So its going to take a scandal before its taken seriously.

Given that most of FAANG are making some sort of 3d map, I'm sure we are going to get pictures of people's bedrooms leaking soon enough.

[mjmj]

Not to the same degree but roomba seemed to survive mapping peoples houses privacy problems, and everyone seems to love Alexa. The general public prefers features over privacy.

[KaiserPro]

They certainly do, up to the point when they start to see the downsides.

Facebook for example. It took a few years, but people are now wary of information being grabbed by them.

[r_hoods_ghost]

And lets be honest here, mmWave radar won't be used on its' own, but instead will be used to in conjunction with visible light and other forms of privacy violating sensing technology to increase the resolution of the panopticon.

[nintendo1889]

We're closer to the star trek future of "sensors" that can sense a planet's surface from 1000s of miles away.

[marbu]

This statement about privacy of mmWave radar you raised made me wonder if someone haven't already tried to implement SAR[1] with mmWave radar, and quick search reveals that indeed, this is being looked into, eg.:

- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9136646 - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.00636.pdf

That said, it doesn't mean that every mmWave radar could work as SAR.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic-aperture_radar

[Sanzig]

Fundamentally, any radar that can be configured to capture coherent data (ie: amplitude and phase rather than just amplitude) can be a SAR. SAR is basically post-hoc digital beamforming to sharpen the image. If you have amplitude and phase information (which you can get if your radar can be configured to output raw quadrature baseband) you can do SAR processing. There's no fancy hardware required, SAR is largely a software problem.

You do also need information about where the sensor was located at each pulse, but it doesn't have to be extremely precise - there are algorithms that do iterative processing to accomplish motion compensation.

[MisterTea]

> If regulators or lawyers don't step in, homes and some businesses may need RF shielding.

Creating a new job market: RF shielding installation.

[hornej]

I agree that if all of a sudden our routers started mapping out the world like in the Batman movie that would be a bad thing.

[dathinab]

Hm, I the EU due to GDPR this services are required to make you opt in to them.

Does that mean many of this applications are outright illegal in the EU, due to not having a good way to handle the case where the user doesn't opt-in?

[dathinab]

Thinking about it a bit more in Germany there is a law about spy devices.

Most spying on users through websites etc. doesn't fall under it do it being formulated in the pre-internet age.

But would WIFI-7 enabled routers fall under it? It's not complete unrealistic that it might happen.

The think is this law is rather strict in how illegal spy devices are to be handled => destructive disposal. (Required, by anyone owning such a device).

That could be quite a big fall out.

This law did hit some IoT devices, like some toys with integrated voice recording.

[hungryforcodes]

Well it's nice that the most well behaving countries (not that they are THAT well behaved) play nice -- but for countries in mmmm...Asia, Africa and the Middle East this will be a boon, sadly.

[dathinab]

Yes I would say WIFI 7 falls under irresponsible technology.

[lmilcin]

They can already identify a person from typing, gait or even how you move your mouse.

It is either very dishonest or extremely stupid for an expert to say mm waves can't be used to identify a person.