Researchers at Purdue University have found a new way to get surveillance cameras to “talk” to the people they see. The system is called PHADE, which stands for “private human addressing,” and it enables cameras to send messages to people’s devices when they’ve entered a specific area without collecting their personal data.
Instead of using an IP or MAC address, cameras equipped with PHADE create an “address code” based on a person’s motion patterns when they’ve entered their field of view. PHADE builds a packet with a customized message linked to that address code, and then broadcasts it out. If a target’s smartphone has the other end of PHADE’s tech, it builds a second address based on a user’s movement, comparing it to those attached to any packets it receives. If the two address codes match, the message is delivered.