NEW YORK (PNN) - October 6, 2014 - A company has installed beacons inside hundreds of downtown New York City pay phones that ping the smart phones and tablets of New Yorkers walking by. The beacons are able to gather information about the locations of passersby, the time they passed the beacon, and what websites they visit, among other information. The beacons exchange data over Bluetooth.
The phone booth pingers seem to be in a pilot phase. For now, people's devices will only trade data with the beacons if they have certain third-party apps installed and they've checked that they're okay with the apps gathering data about them. But privacy advocates are worried that the beacons were installed without notifying New York City residents, or asking for their input. Scott Alexander reported on Apple’s beacon technology for Popular Science in April, warning that it is impossible to turn off without turning off Bluetooth, which users may want to keep on for their headsets or fitness trackers.
Titan, the company working in New York, only received approval from city officials. Titan owns thousands of New York phone booths and operates booths in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities, too. The beacons also appear in other cities, but Titan refused to provide any details.
The beacons reveal a darker side to New York City's plans to revamp its little-used pay phones. The city has been looking to update the phone booths for some time now. It's turned 27 booths into Wi-Fi hotspots. ("No personal information will be gathered and no advertising or promotions will be presented during the Project's trial period," says the information page about the hotspots.)
Last year, city officials held a contest for companies to submit ideas for the phone booths. Finalists included ideas for turning booths into touchscreen information kiosks, or solar-powered columns where people could call emergency services or a cab. Months after the city announced its contest winners, Titan began installing its Bluetooth beacons into existing stations.
Some of the pay phones may undergo more changes soon. The city's contracts with the companies that now operate and maintain them, in place since 1999, will expire on October 15.
Update: New York City officials have told Titan to remove its tracking beacons from city phone booths. The removal request came just hours after publication of this story.
