Windows has a way to track your phone

Our Take

Credit to the channel Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency for flagging something most of us never think to check: that Windows itself has built-in functionality to detect and link with phones nearby. It's a small example of a much bigger pattern — tech companies normalizing persistent, low-visibility tracking as a 'feature' rather than disclosing it as the privacy trade-off it actually is. Most users never opted into this in any meaningful sense; it's just switched on, buried in settings nobody reads.

This matters to us because it's the same playbook we see with automated license plate readers like Flock Safety's network. The infrastructure of surveillance rarely announces itself with a 'Big Brother is watching' sign. It shows up as a convenience setting, a quiet city council vote, a camera mounted on a pole nobody asked about. Individually these things seem minor. Together, they build a system where your movements, devices, and habits are logged by default, and you have to go digging just to find out it's happening — let alone opt out.

If you're trying to understand how much of this is already in your neighborhood, check our camera map to see where ALPRs are deployed near you, and visit our take-action page for ways to push back on surveillance creep, whether it's coming from a Windows update or a pole at the end of your street.