Analyzing the Effect of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) with Randomized MAC Addresses in IoT Applications

Abstract

Based on the rapidly trending field of Location-Based Services, Gateways which are important components of the internet of Things (IoT) are designed to rely on Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of devices at the desired venue in order to locate and track them. However, Apple and similarly Android manufacturers have adopted the strategy of MAC address randomization such that their users' privacy would not be compromised in any sort. This paper, pursued the goal of studying the behavior of MAC Address randomization in iOS devices, finding an answer for the following key question: “What does randomized MAC addresses mean for BLE-based Location Tracking and Analytics?” and investigating potential solutions to overcome this challenge and to keep track of all devices at a target venue, while respecting users' privacy. As per our studies, two main approaches are suggested, adopting each will enable Gateways to cope with the MAC address randomization strategies of the iOS devices. The first suggestion is an extension of tracking algorithm, relying on the fact that the frequency of MAC Address randomization is low enough for to keep track of the devices present at the venue, based on the first detected MAC address and its associated device, and the second proposed approach is to incorporate other data fields of the advertised Probe Requests from a target device to enhance localization performance.