University Tracks Students' Movements Using WiFi, But Says It's OK Because It's Not Tracking Students
One of the many revelations from the Snowden files was that Canada's spy agency has been tracking people as they connect to WiFi in different public locations. And if Canada is doing it, you can be pretty sure the NSA and GCHQ are doing the same, since neither is known for being backward in using whatever means it can to snoop on huge numbers of people. Of course, you'd expect spy agencies to be up to these kinds of tricks, and you might also be unsurprised to learn that shops are also tracking you using your WiFi connection. But we might have hoped that universities would have been a little more sensitive to privacy issues than the following news on the Australian ABC News site suggests is the case:
The University of Melbourne has moved to allay privacy concerns amid revelations it is tracking students through their wi-fi usage.
The university said the practice, which looked at where people were moving around campus, helped institutions improve retention rates and the experience of students.
