cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25779751
The intative promises to be privacy-friendly with no tracking. Stating:
Your privacy is important. The WiFi4EU app ensures a private online experience with no tracking or data collection. Simply connect and enjoy free public Wi-Fi without concerns.
Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/wifi4eu-citizens
Will be interesting to see how this spans and plays out in reality. Looks promising too, did a quick scan of their builtin permissions and trackers and looks good too. (Scanning tool is called Exodus)
No taking on EU -run wifi? Those f’rs want to read our private encrypted chats. Why would anyone connect to this?
The EU is not a singular entity. It is possible for it to do good and evil simultaneously.
Because people know about HTTPS.
They want to be able to read all the communications. So whether you transport your data via https or not has nothing to do with this.
Not all internet traffic is chats
If they have backdoor access to chats it doesn’t matter if you use their WiFi or not.
To be fair (op seems tech illiterate but he might have a point) you could track MAC addresses. My phone randomise my MAC but maybe every phone doesn’t ?
AFAIK every semi-modern phone does mac address randomisation now
I wouldn’t be concern about the MAC addresses but about the app mentioned in the article. Why do you need an app for this? What data will it collect about you?
What will tracking MACs give them? They will now that such and such MAC address connected to such and such WiFi router. What will they do with it? What is the risk here?
Your MAC is unique to your *physical" device so there’s that, also you could track movement globally. I guess there are other things I’m not thinking about but 2 just on top of my head is clearly 2 too many IMO.
I get that but what the European Commission would do with this info? They would be able to tell that you visited Berlin in May or that you went to Portugal in June. And… what? They will not sell this data to advertisers because that would be just stupid. Would they share this data with police? For what purpose? Would Ursula von der Leyen use it to track her political opponents? See where they went on holiday? What would be the point?
If the ability to track citizens doesn’t ring a bell for you I have a bridge to sell…
Of course it will be abused, not by the king of Spain but surely by other more subtle and indirect means. Sometimes it’s the paranoia of a leader, look up Stasi in East Germany, they knew loads about their citizens, and they used it in lots of bad ways.
So freedom of not being tracked is something you shouldn’t not want because why allow it in the first place?
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