Researchers identify people through ordinary Wi-Fi routers with 99.5% accuracy

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have demonstrated that ordinary Wi-Fi routers can be used to identify individuals with 99.5% accuracy by leveraging beamforming fe... Read original →

This breakthrough ignites a privacy crisis in Wi-Fi-based RF sensing. Technically, without mandatory anonymization in the 802.11bf standard, chipset vendors will be forced to embed BFI obfuscation logic in PHY/MAC layers, increasing Wi-Fi 6E/7 SoC complexity. Regulatory-wise, the EU may classify BFI-based identification as biometric data processing under GDPR Article 9, triggering global firmware recalls and raising compliance costs for Broadcom and MediaTek. Strategically, Qualcomm could position its proprietary CSI+AI stack as a 'more controllable' alternative, while Taiwan, China-based OEMs risk export devices being mandated with sensing-disabling switches in Western markets. Within 18 months, IEEE will likely amend 802.11bf to disable BFI broadcasting by default, and RF fingerprint-jamming co-processors may become standard in router SoCs—spawning a new security sub-segment.