Stanford researchers develop method for tracking mobile devices using battery charge data

Sam Oliver reports:

Privacy advocates have long tried to educate consumers on the perils of giving apps access to GPS data, but a group of Stanford researchers has developed a method to infer a device’s location from a seemingly much more innocuous source — battery charge information.

The attack — which its creators have dubbed “PowerSpy” — relies on the fact that mobile devices use more power as they get farther from connected cellular towers. By comparing the pattern of battery consumption on a device to a known pattern established by previously measuring a given area, the location can be determined without access to any other location information.

Read more on Apple Insider.