Did you know that billboards are spying on you now?

(INTELLIHUB) — Not only do billboards now interact with you and your smartphone to target you for marketing purposes, police are also using billboards to track you.

Mass Privatel reports:

Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) has 675,000 billboards worldwide most of which are tracking everyone’s smartphones and tablets. CCO’s ad program is a partnership between AT&T and other companies that collect location data from smartphones, company officials said.

CCO’s smartphone electronic surveillance system is called “RADAR” which they insist, anonymizes everyone’s data. But it does much more than that, it tracks consumer’s real-world travel patterns and behaviors.

“… RADAR measures consumer’s real-world travel patterns and behaviors as they move through their day, analyzing data on direction of travel, billboard viewability, and visits to specific destinations. This movement is then mapped against Clear Channel’s displays, allowing advertisers to plan and buy Out-Of-Home to reach specific behavioral audience segments.”

Fyi, CCO has been working with the FBI and Police since 2007 and they’ve partnered with DHS/Police to let them to use their billboards.

“CCO is honored to play a supportive role to law enforcement and public health and safety efforts. Since partnering with both federal and local law enforcement agencies in December, 2007…”

Police use CCO’s billboards to identify and locate citizens.

Back in 2011, “an elderly female suffering from Alzheimer’s disease wandered away from family at a local shopping mall and was found by a citizen using the digital billboard information,” recalled retired Police Chief Neil Mahan.

Fast forward to 2013, DHS/Police proudly boasts, that 52 fugitives were featured on CCO billboards in Texas.

“There is no area that is immune to gangs,” Brian Moskowitz, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said.

Police brag about their close relationship with CCO.

“We are only as successful as we have been because of all of the partnerships [CCO] we have developed,” Houston Police Department Captain Dale Brown.

Last month, I warned everyone that DHS had installed surveillance cameras with microphones on NJ’s transit system to spy everyone’s conversations. Privacy advocates called it a monumental invasion of privacy!

 

And last year, I warned everyone that DHS/Police were using billboards to justify stopping, pedestrians and motorists at heroin checkpoints. DHS also uses CCO billboards to display urgent notifications.

 “After months of advertising, one of the most brazen Police State campaigns ever conceived began in Maryland last week. Police set up rolling heroin checkpoints as a pretense to detain, question, ticket and arrest pedestrians and motorists.”

Partnering with corporations is nothing new for DHS/FEMA. DHS has even created a Private Sector Division which is dedicated to partnering with corporations.

“[DHS] Representatives will work to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate between public and private stakeholders to fulfill various objectives…”

According to FEMA, Target, Verizon, Brookfield Properties, Walmart, Big Lots, Citigroup and many more companies are helping DHS spy on the public. 

• [Representatives] Serve as a critical liaison between FEMA and the private sector
• [Representatives] Contribute to national level projects related to all phases of emergency management (Apparently that means spying on everyone’s phones and tablets)
• [Representatives] Support and introduce programmatic improvements on a variety of private sector initiatives

CCO also has a close relationship with ‘Crime StoppersUSA‘ which also has a close relationship with DHS. (A ‘Crime Stoppers and Homeland Security’ search returned over 108,000 hits)

It getting strange people.

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H/T: Joe Cadillic