There are no laws against this to slow or stop its spread. Leonardo DRS is a defense contractor whose website says, "These cutting-edge sensing systems provide targeting, surveillance, and protection capabilities based on our advanced electro-optical, infrared, electronic warfare, and tactical radar systems." ? Patrick Wood, Editor.

A startup called SignalTrace has built a product that turns ordinary license plate readers into something far more invasive: a system that identifies not just vehicles, but the specific people inside them by tracking their phones, AirPods, and smartwatches.

The capability is straightforward and chilling. SignalTrace links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plates. When your iPhone, AirPods, and smartwatch move as a cluster inside a vehicle, the system learns to recognize that pattern. The next time any of those devices passes a license plate reader—whether at a toll booth, traffic camera, or police checkpoint—the infrastructure doesn't just log a plate number. It logs you.

This is not a theoretical concern. SignalTrace is actively marketing this as a surveillance product designed to sweep up Bluetooth and other wireless data and add it to existing license plate reader networks. The company is positioning itself as a bridge between the fragmented world of traffic cameras and the intimate data ecosystems living in your pocket.