PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles’ near-citywide Wi-Fi system does not store location data for wireless devices connected to the network, police said.
And even if it did, police would need a search warrant to access it to track an Internet user’s whereabouts.
“It’s not a big system that’s just holding all this information,” Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said.
“We don’t keep records on what those wireless access points do.”
The Wi-Fi network — referred to as a “mesh” network covering roughly 80 percent of the city with a wireless Internet signal from strategically placed antenna-like devices on utility and light poles — became complete in May when City Council members voted to accept the fully installed system.
Under contract with the city, Port Angeles-based Capacity Provisioning Inc. began installing 239 devices as wireless access points, or WAPs, throughout the city last July.
Earlier this month, concerns were raised by Seattle-area media about a mesh network system the Seattle Police Department has installed in downtown Seattle.
The reports, the first of which was published Nov. 6 in the weekly newspaper The Stranger, raised concerns about the ability of Seattle’s mesh network to track people’s movements through downtown by detecting personal Wi-Fi-capable devices such as smartphones.
According to a Wednesday report on KOMONews.com, Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel decided Tuesday to deactivate the partially completed mesh network, with no timetable given as to when the system would be fully online.
One of the main goals of Port Angeles’ $3.7 million network, paid for mostly through a $2.6 million federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant, was to improve communication among Port Angeles’ police and emergency responders, Police Chief Terry Gallagher said.
Federal Department of Homeland Security money, some $2.7 million, was used to fund Seattle’s mesh network, according to The Stranger.
No such funding was used for Port Angeles’ system, Gallagher said.
While both Seattle’s and Port Angeles’ systems operate the same way, Smith said Port Angeles’ network is configured such that the wireless access points installed throughout the city do not record what wireless devices are communicating with them at any given time.
“We don’t keep records on what those wireless access points do,” Smith said.
“When you break that connection, that WAP’s not storing anything.”
The access points allow people with Wi-Fi-capable devices to connect to the Internet for free for one hour per day, with different payment plans available for longer usages available through local Internet-service-provider OlyPen.
OlyPen Inc. manages the non-hardware aspects of the mesh network.
These access points, built by Aruba Networks Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., do not go looking for wireless devices to connect to, Smith explained.
Rather, a laptop computer or smartphone trying to connect to a Wi-Fi signal continuously “hunts” for such a signal, a capability that can be turned off, he said.
If I tell [my phone] not to connect, it’s not going to connect,” Smith said.
“The WAP doesn’t look for your phone; the phone looks for [the] WAP.”
Even if the access points were somehow able to store location data from a given device, Smith said, a law enforcement agency would have to seek a search warrant to access that information.
This means police have to be investigating a crime, believe the information they’re looking for actually exists and prove to a judge that a warrant is necessary, Smith said.
“If we had a reason to go after a search for a Wi-Fi connection, we’d go get that warrant,” Smith said.
Smith said a more reliable way to determine the location of a person would be using information gleaned from cellphone towers, information stored by phone companies.
Here, too, police need a warrant to access this data, Smith added.
Gallagher confirmed that Port Angeles police will not use the city’s mesh network for unlawful surveillance of any type.
“I don’t want the public to even suspect there’s something secret going on,” Gallagher said.
“I think it’s healthy for people to keep an eye on their government.”
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
