Surveillance Cameras Now Track Phones, Smartwatches, And Pet Microchips Alongside License Plates

Surveillance Cameras Now Track Phones, Smartwatches, And Pet Microchips Alongside License Plates

L Todd Wood

Law enforcement agencies could soon gain the ability to follow not only vehicles but also the personal electronic devices of drivers and passengers, thanks to a new system that merges traditional license plate scanning with wireless device tracking.

The technology, called SignalTrace, comes from Italian defense giant Leonardo. 

It builds upon existing automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks already installed on roadsides and in public spaces. Rather than stopping at vehicle plates, SignalTrace collects signals from smartphones, Bluetooth wearables like smartwatches and earbuds, RFID badges, and even pet microchips to create a persistent digital profile tied to specific cars.

According to materials reviewed by 404 Media, the system uses algorithms to detect when multiple devices travel consistently alongside a particular vehicle. It then links those devices to the vehicle’s license plate and precise location history, generating what the company describes as an “electronic fingerprint.”

This capability could help investigators track suspects even when license plates are swapped, removed, or obscured, reported SOFX.

Privacy advocates warn that such expanded tracking raises serious civil liberties issues. Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have long criticized ALPR systems for mapping people’s daily movements and associations, creating detailed “patterns of life” without warrants or probable cause. Adding personal device data to the mix significantly amplifies those concerns.

Leonardo has not publicly responded to the latest privacy questions surrounding SignalTrace. The company secured a patent for the core technology in 2024. In its announcement, Leonardo stressed that the system only captures emitted device frequencies and does not access or decrypt the actual content of phones, messages, or communications.

Leonardo provides equipment and software to police forces, security services, and government agencies. The rollout of SignalTrace underscores a broader trend: surveillance infrastructure that once focused solely on vehicles is rapidly evolving to monitor the digital devices people carry with them every day.

This development is likely to fuel ongoing debates about the appropriate limits of public surveillance technology in balancing security needs with personal privacy.

After October 7, majority of Israelis support rebuilding the Temple, up from 30% in 2013

After October 7, majority of Israelis support rebuilding the Temple, up from 30% in 2013

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

Twelve years ago, only 30% of Israeli Jews supported rebuilding the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, on Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount. Today, that number stands at 55%. The shift did not happen gradually or quietly. It happened on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 Israelis and shattered whatever remained of the Israeli public’s assumptions about security, sovereignty, and the spiritual stakes of this conflict. A new survey commissioned by the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation and conducted by the Direct Polls Institute under pollster Shlomo Filber reveals a nation whose relationship to its holiest site has been transformed by trauma and war.

The survey, drawn from a representative sample of 1,010 Israeli adults aged 18 and older, found that 55% of Jewish Israelis now support the establishment of the Third Temple, with only 29% opposed and 16% undecided. Among those who support it, 38% regard the Temple as having both religious and national significance, 21% as purely religious, and 16% as primarily a national and historical matter. Just 13% called the Temple Mount too politically sensitive to pursue, a striking drop from the defensive posture that has governed Israeli government policy toward the site for decades.

The October 7 effect is written clearly in the numbers. Fully 42% of respondents said they feel a stronger connection to the Temple Mount and the aspiration to rebuild the Temple since the massacre. Among right-wing Israelis, that figure rises to 56%. Among those who identify as Religious Zionists, 71% said their connection to Har HaBayit had grown stronger since October 7. Only 7% of right-wing respondents said their connection had weakened.

The survey also asked which place best represents the strongest Jewish, national, and historical feeling. The Temple Mount came first, chosen by 52% of respondents. The Western Wall (Kotel) came in second at 16%, followed by Jerusalem as a whole at 15%, and Masada at just 8%.

That ranking represents a seismic reversal from the picture that emerged in a Ynet poll published on July 11, 2013, just days before Tisha B’Av. In that survey, conducted by the Maagar Mochot Institute for the Nachalat Azma’ut Israel Foundation and the Joint Headquarters of Temple Mount Organizations, with 523 respondents, 66% of Israeli Jews named the Western Wall as the holiest place in the Land of Israel. Only 29% named the Temple Mount itself. At that time, a mere 30% supported building the Third Temple, while 45% opposed it.

The contrast between 2013 and today is not a small statistical fluctuation. It is a transformation in national consciousness. In 2013, roughly half of all Israeli Jews believed the Muslim Waqf, the Islamic religious authority that administers the compound, was the de facto sovereign on the Temple Mount. Only 19% believed Israel actually controlled the site. 59% of respondents in that earlier poll supported dividing the Temple Mount between Jews and Muslims by zones and times, along the lines of the arrangement at the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. There was, in the pre-October 7 Israeli mainstream, a resigned acceptance of Muslim dominance over Judaism’s holiest site.

That resignation appears to be eroding. The new survey’s finding that 52% of Israelis now identify the Temple Mount, not the Western Wall, as the place that best embodies the Jewish national spirit marks a fundamental reassessment. The Kotel, it is worth remembering, is not itself a sacred site in biblical terms. It is a retaining wall built by Herod the Great around the base of Har HaBayit. Its centrality in Jewish life since 1967 reflected the political impossibility of accessing the Mount itself, not a theological preference for the wall over the Temple. When Israelis shift their emotional identification from the wall back to the Mount, they are in effect demanding what was always, from a Jewish standpoint, the real thing.

“Super El Niño” Underway And More Global Food Supply Chains Under Threat

This “Super El Niño” Has The Potential To Be The Strongest Ever

Michael Snyder

Global food supply chains are under threat like never before. The war with Iran has created a worldwide fertilizer crisis, diesel prices have risen to very painful levels, and farmers in the U.S. have been dealing with an epic multi-year drought. Now a “Super El Niño” is here, and Fox News is telling us that it has the potential to be the “strongest Super El Niño ever”. In fact, we have being warned that as it is influenced by a gigantic “9,000-mile marine heatwave” that has developed in the northern Pacific, it could actually become a “Godzilla El Niño”. I am convinced that over the next 12 months we will see things happen on this planet that most people never even imagined were possible. In fact, absolutely crazy weather events are already happening all over the world.

Earlier this month, the NOAA announced that an El Niño had begun, and now NASA has officially confirmed this…

The Super El Niño is ‘underway’, NASA has confirmed, following satellite observations of sea surface height across the Pacific.

Measurements taken by the Sentinel–6 Michael Freilich satellite show that sea levels across parts of the equatorial Pacific are elevated.

‘When ocean water warms, it expands in volume and causes the sea surface to rise—making the water’s height a reliable indicator of ocean temperatures,’ NASA explained.

‘Warmer–than–normal temperatures, hence higher sea surface heights, in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean are associated with El Niño.’

Every time there is a “Super El Niño” some parts of the world are going to experience drought.

That is just the reality of what we are facing.

In the late 1870s, a particularly strong “Super El Niño” caused widespread global droughts that resulted in the deaths of approximately 50 million people…

History can give us some examples. In 1877, one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded was associated with historic droughts across Asia, as well as in parts of Brazil and northern Africa. These droughts, “along with colonial policies, contributed to famines in many regions which were really devastating,” said Deepti Singh, an associate professor at Washington State University who co-authored a study on this period of global famine.

The fatalities associated with these famines, upward of 50 million people, said Singh, “are humbling to think about.”

From everything that I have seen, I would say that it is very likely that the Super El Niño that has now begun could potentially be much stronger than the Super El Niño of 1877-1878.

And that is quite noteworthy, because that Super El Niño was one of the worst environmental disasters in recorded history…

“It was arguably the worst environmental disaster to ever befall humanity and one of the worst calamities of any sort in at least the last 150 years,” the authors of a 2018 research article in the Journal of Climate wrote in their paper. “In a very real sense, the El Niño and climate events of 1876–78 helped create the global inequalities that would later be characterized as ‘first world’ and ‘third world.’”

Even if there was no Super El Niño, global food production would be way down this year due to the global fertilizer crisis, higher diesel prices and ongoing droughts in major breadbaskets around the world.

But now the Super El Niño that is upon us threatens to cause “deep production shortfalls” in some of our most important crop producing regions…

El Niño events cause droughts in major crop producing regions across the Western Pacific (e.g., eastern Indonesia, the Philippines, SE China), southern Africa, the western Sahel, north-central India, and the northeast part of South America. These conditions in turn lead to significant declines in staple crop production in those areas. A one-in-a-hundred year El Niño is likely to cause deep production shortfalls, driving up demand for traded products to compensate, and raising global food prices.

There are just four crops that account for over 60 percent of all calories consumed by the global population.

Unfortunately, it is being projected that those four crops will be hit really hard…

Globally, there is a heightened risk of a shock to global food supply chains. Four crops – wheat, rice, maize and soybeans – provide more than 60% of the world’s calorie intake.

Maize and rice are especially sensitive to El Niño, with drought and disrupted monsoons reducing yields in major producers such as South Africa, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brazil. Wheat is affected by heat and drought in key exporters like Australia, Canada and China, while soybean production has fallen in countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

None of us have ever experienced anything like this in our entire lifetimes.

Global famines are ahead of us. The only question is how widespread they will become.

Right now we are still eating food that was produced last year to a very large degree.

The turning point will come at harvest time this fall.

Food prices will start to rise even higher in wealthy nations, and in poor nations there simply won’t be enough food to eat at all.

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Your Car Was Never the Target

Your Car Was Never the Target

Martin Armstrong

For years, governments assured the public that license plate readers were simply tools to catch stolen vehicles, fugitives, and dangerous criminals. That was always the sales pitch. Now the mask is coming off. 

According to reports, a new surveillance platform called SignalTrace is being marketed to law enforcement and government agencies that goes far beyond reading license plates. 

The system can collect identifiers from smartphones, smartwatches, Bluetooth devices, vehicle infotainment systems, Wi-Fi hotspots, tire pressure sensors, RFID devices, AirTags, and even pet microchips. They are no longer interested in tracking your car. They are interested in tracking you.

The frightening part is how openly this is being discussed. The stated goal of the technology is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant.” In other words, the authorities no longer want to know where a vehicle traveled. They want to know who was inside, where they went, who they met, and how often they traveled together. 

The system creates a unique electronic fingerprint based on the collection of devices surrounding a person. Your phone, your watch, your headphones, your car, and even your dog’s microchip become pieces of a digital identity that can be followed everywhere you go.

This is exactly how governments always expand surveillance. They begin with a limited purpose that sounds reasonable. Then the technology advances and suddenly the scope becomes limitless. 

License plate readers were sold as crime-fighting tools. Then they became databases of vehicle movements. Now they are evolving into systems that can reconstruct an individual’s entire pattern of life. Privacy advocates have warned that these systems can reveal where people work, where they worship, where they seek medical treatment, and who they associate with. Once that information exists in a searchable database, every government agency will want access.

What is unfolding is part of a much broader trend. Governments around the world are building digital identification systems, expanding financial surveillance, monitoring communications, and centralizing personal data. 

At the same time, law enforcement agencies are seeking nationwide access to license plate reader networks that provide near real-time tracking capabilities across the United States. The infrastructure is being assembled piece by piece. Most people only see each individual step. They fail to recognize the larger picture until the system is fully operational.

The argument will always be security. It is the oldest justification in history. Every expansion of government power is presented as necessary for public safety. Yet once these surveillance systems are built, they are rarely scaled back. Instead, new uses are constantly discovered.

 Today the target is criminals. Tomorrow it may be political opponents, protesters, journalists, or anyone deemed suspicious by those in power. History has repeatedly shown that governments never surrender tools that enhance control over the population.

The greatest threat is not the technology itself. Technology is neutral. The danger lies in believing that governments, corporations, and bureaucracies can be trusted indefinitely with unlimited access to information about every citizen’s movements, associations, and daily life. 

When your phone, your vehicle, your wearable devices, and even your pet become tracking beacons feeding a centralized surveillance network, we are no longer talking about crime prevention. We are talking about the creation of a digital leash attached to every individual. Once that infrastructure exists, the temptation to abuse it becomes inevitable.

Private Biometrics Are Building the Digital ID Prison: No New Laws Required.

Private Biometrics Are Building the Digital ID Prison: No New Laws Required

Patti Johnson

That “black pill moment” is arriving faster than many realize. Not primarily through sweeping new government mandates, but through private companies quietly normalizing biometric data collection under the banners of “security,” “fraud prevention,” and “child protection.” They are erecting the infrastructure for a world where you cannot easily participate in daily life, commerce, or even basic online access without surrendering your face, your license scan, or other biometrics. Once the systems exist and the data flows, laws can simply ratify what private actors have already made routine.

In a recent commentary “Digital ID Black Pill Moment”, I highlighted a sobering reality: 186 out of 198 countries already have digital ID systems in place. Only a shrinking handful of nations lack foundational national digital IDs. As I wrote, “the global push for digital IDs is far advanced, likely past the point of no return, aligning with the UN’s 2030 goal of universal legal identity and enabling a globalist digital currency system that could control access to everything.”

Government mandates are not required to finish building the digital surveillance prison. Citizens are willingly submitting their biometrics to access social media sites. For example, I am no longer on Facebook. They banned me during the Covid era after I began sharing information about the true contents of the shots and alternative treatments. A friend just sent me a Facebook post and I could not view it without taking a selfie and sending it to FB. No way was I going to comply.

Try viewing certain Facebook posts or recovering a flagged account, and you may hit this wall. Users are increasingly prompted to submit a video selfie turning their head in different directions so the system can map facial geometry to “prove you’re a real person” or restore access. The company states it uses this to combat scams and compromised accounts, and claims the video is deleted after verification. [2]

This is not a rare case. It is quickly becoming the normal way companies handle account recovery, new account setup, suspected suspicious activity, or even basic access to articles and information on many websites. Your facial biometric data is sent to a private company that already holds huge amounts of user information and is under constant pressure and often partners with governments and international standards organizations.

My husband recently tried to order an Uber ride and was required to submit a selfie plus front and back photos of his driver’s license before the app would proceed. Uber’s official materials describe identity verification (including selfies matched via facial recognition) primarily for drivers to prevent account sharing, and for riders it is often framed as optional for a “verified badge.” Yet real users are encountering these hard prompts in practice.

The stated reason is safety and trust on the platform. The practical effect is another private company harvesting and cross-referencing your facial biometrics and government ID data.

Major banks now routinely use facial recognition or selfie verification for mobile app logins, high-value transfers, account opening (a process known as KYC, or “Know Your Customer” identity verification required by banking regulations), and fraud checks. 

Telecom providers require selfies for SIM card swaps (replacing your phone’s Subscriber Identity Module card) or account modifications. Gig economy platforms (such as ride-sharing or delivery services like Uber, DoorDash, or similar) use third-party services that demand selfie plus ID document verification. Some retail and payment systems are piloting biometric checkout.

Proponents say this reduces identity theft, speeds up processes, and improves security compared to passwords or one-time codes. The result, however, is the same: your face becomes the key to your money and services.

Every U.S. state requires a facial photograph on driver’s licenses and state IDs. That photo is biometric data. Many states’ DMV databases feed into facial recognition systems used by law enforcement. REAL ID standards and emerging mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) are digitizing and enhancing this further. Eighteen states already have biometric-enabled digital driver’s licenses.

Florida’s HB 3 (Online Protections for Minors) [4] restricts social media access for children under 14 and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. To comply, platforms must verify ages using government ID or biometric data. The result is that adults, too, will need to submit ID or facial biometrics simply to access platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and others. Similar requirements are advancing under the UK’s Online Safety Act, which mandates robust age verification, including facial age estimation, for sites hosting potentially harmful or pornographic content, with ripple effects across social media.

The Bigger Picture: Agenda 2030 and the “Cannot Buy or Sell” Infrastructure

This is not happening in a vacuum. It aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 push for universal legal identity by 2030 and the broader frameworks of the Great Reset / Agenda 2030.

Private companies are doing the expensive, politically risky work of normalizing biometric surrender and building interoperable databases. Once the data exists at scale, faces linked to licenses, accounts, transactions, and online activity, adding legal requirements for purchases, services, or internet access becomes trivial.

We are told it is all for safety, convenience, fraud prevention, and protecting the vulnerable. Yet the cumulative effect is a world in which opting out becomes increasingly difficult, anonymity erodes, and every interaction can be tracked, verified, and potentially scored or restricted through biometric identifiers.

The infrastructure for systems in which you “cannot buy or sell without an ID” is being assembled one prompted selfie at a time by Meta, Uber, banks, app developers, and verification vendors. This often happens before governments even pass the final laws.

We have been warned. The question now is whether we will continue feeding the system our most personal biometric data in the name of convenience, or whether we will recognize the trap while there is still room to resist, opt out where possible, demand real privacy protections, and support alternatives that do not require surrendering our faces to participate in society.