{"id":255791,"date":"2026-05-25T22:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/wifi-networks-can-identify-individuals-with-99-5-accuracy-researchers-warn-of-privacy-risks\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T09:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:20:39","slug":"wifi-networks-can-identify-individuals-with-99-5-accuracy-researchers-warn-of-privacy-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/wifi-networks-can-identify-individuals-with-99-5-accuracy-researchers-warn-of-privacy-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"WiFi Networks Can Identify Individuals With 99.5% Accuracy, Researchers Warn of Privacy Risks"},"content":{"rendered":"

WiFi Networks Can Identify Individuals With 99.5% Accuracy, Researchers Warn of Privacy Risks<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.techtimes.com\/articles\/317164\/20260525\/wifi-networks-can-identify-individuals-995-accuracy-researchers-warn-privacy-risks.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-25 22:35:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.techtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Your WiFi router could reveal more than your personal information. The scariest part could be knowing that it can be used for surveillance in places where most people pass by.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have found that standard WiFi networks can identify individuals with surprising accuracy using advanced signal analysis and machine learning.<\/p>\n

The study suggests that everyday wireless systems may unintentionally expose personal identity patterns, raising concerns about passive surveillance in public spaces.<\/p>\n

Beamforming Data Exposes Hidden User Information<\/h2>\n

Discover how to choose the best WiFi router, improve home internet speed, reduce buffering, and get smoother streaming, gaming, and remote work across all your devices.<\/span>
\nPixabay, stux<\/span><\/p>\n

The research focuses on WiFi beamforming, a technology introduced with WiFi 5 that improves signal direction by targeting devices more efficiently. To support this process, connected devices send beamforming feedback information (BFI) back to routers.<\/p>\n

The findings indicate that people can potentially be recognized without actively connecting their devices to a network.<\/p>\n

According to the study, this feedback data is often unencrypted and can be accessed and analyzed without specialized hardware or direct network access.<\/p>\n

Researchers found that these signal patterns contain unique behavioral markers that can be used to infer identity-related characteristics.<\/p>\n

Machine Learning Achieves Near-Perfect Identification<\/h2>\n

The KIT team trained machine learning models using WiFi data collected from nearly 200 participants walking through a controlled signal environment. The dataset included multiple viewing angles and combined both beamforming feedback information (BFI) and channel state information (CSI).<\/p>\n

According to Gizmodo, the results showed that the system achieved an accuracy of up to 99.5% in identifying individuals using BFI data alone.<\/p>\n

Even CSI-based methods reached accuracy levels of 82.4%. Once…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WiFi Networks Can Identify Individuals With 99.5% Accuracy, Researchers Warn of Privacy Risks https:\/\/www.techtimes.com\/articles\/317164\/20260525\/wifi-networks-can-identify-individuals-995-accuracy-researchers-warn-privacy-risks.htm Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d.techtimes.com\/en\/full\/463382\/router.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255793,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255791\/revisions\/255793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}