Leonardo Markets SignalTrace Surveillance System to Law Enforcement

Security company Leonardo S.p.A. is marketing SignalTrace, a surveillance system designed for law enforcement that integrates automated license plate readers with sensors to track consumer electronic devices. The technology captures electronic signatures from smartphones and smartwatches via Bluetooth and radio frequency identification tags, associating these fingerprints with specific vehicles and time-stamped locations.

By recognizing groups of devices that regularly travel together, the software allows investigators to establish associations between people and cars. This capability enables the tracking of targets across different locations or the identification of individuals associated with a vehicle even when a license plate is not visible. The system is reportedly installed in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and predecessor technology appears on a New York state contract price list.

Leonardo S.p.A. asserts that the system "does not identify people" directly and only collects signals already being broadcast, requiring corroboration through ordinary investigative methods to establish identity. However, critics argue that linking these patterns to vehicle records effectively identifies users. The deployment has raised Fourth Amendment privacy concerns regarding the legality of identifying suspects through indirect relational inference and movement patterns.