Your Xfinity router just got a new job: watching for movement inside your home. Comcast has launched WiFi Motion, an opt-in feature that turns an Xfinity Gateway and connected Wi-Fi devices into motion sensors. The idea is to give people a camera-free way to know when something or someone is moving around the house.
Also, there’s a privacy catch worth knowing before you turn it on: Comcast says information generated by WiFi Motion may be disclosed to law enforcement in response to a subpoena, court order, search warrant or certain other legal processes. And in some cases, you may not be notified.
The Wi-Fi can tell when you’re moving
WiFi Motion doesn’t need a camera pointed at your living room. Instead, it uses changes in the radio-frequency signals traveling between your Xfinity Gateway and connected Wi-Fi devices. When something moves through the sensing area, it disrupts those signals, allowing the system to detect movement.
Comcast describes each sensing area as an oval between the Xfinity equipment and a selected Wi-Fi-connected device. You can create up to five of these motion-sensing areas. So, theoretically, your router can notice activity without actually seeing what caused it.
Comcast keeps some of the data
When you opt in for the feature, WiFi Motion creates timestamped information about movement in your home. Comcast says it does not actively monitor the motion data or notifications, but information generated by the feature can be disclosed when the company receives valid legal process, including a subpoena, court order or search warrant. The company also says disclosure can occur in certain legal disputes or emergency situations.
The router does not know what happened
It’s important not to make WiFi Motion sound more powerful than it is. The system isn’t watching a live video feed of your house. According to Comcast, the feature does not capture images or video and doesn’t record audio. It detects movement by analyzing disruptions in wireless signals.
So it may be able to tell that movement occurred within a particular sensing area, but it isn’t necessarily going to know whether you got up to grab a glass of water, your dog wandered through the room, or someone was doing an aggressively unnecessary 2 a.m. kitchen dance.
You can also adjust motion and pet sensitivity settings if you’re getting too many alerts. The problem is that convenience comes with a new type of data collection.
At least you have to turn it on
There is one important bit of good news for anyone who just got slightly paranoid about their router. WiFi Motion is opt-in.
It’s not automatically activated on Xfinity Gateways, so you aren’t silently creating a movement log simply because you have Comcast internet. You have to choose to enable the feature.
So, if the convenience of camera-free motion detection is worth creating this additional category of household data, turn it on. If it isn’t, leave it off. And maybe take a second to read the privacy terms before clicking “enable.” Because your router may look like a little plastic box in the corner, but apparently it has ambitions.
Source: Cyber News