this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Bluetooth personal networks have been a thing for about a decade and are used for monitoring traffic density and flow by third party companies. It's partly why Apple was removing their aux ports and pushing for Bluetooth so much, they are making money with tracking their statistically significant user base. Google does it too and it's most readily evident with Maps traffic filter.
If you've wondered why enabling Bluetooth asked for iPhone location to be enabled, now you know.
What the fuck
Just wait until you hear about how AirTags work:
That's how it's expected to work, yes. As does Samsung SmartTags, and Tiles. These tracking devices (that we purchase and opt-in for) are a net positive in most cases. How else would we expect them to work if not for Bluetooth beacons (and UWB)?
When you buy a new iPhone, is the location tracking "Find My" feature enabled by default, or do you need to turn it off if you don't want your phone to upload other people's location data to Apple while draining your battery?
Yes, it is turned on by default. You can opt-out if you'd like. Here's a pretty good article that covers it all: https://www.howtogeek.com/725842/what-is-apples-find-my-network/
Samsung SmartTags "Find" network is opt-in, which stagnated the growth of their network.
Tile's network is naturally opt-in as it requires us to install the app, and therefore has the lowest coverage from my understanding.
I recall seeing the following approximate numbers:
Battery and data usage are negligible.