Levin and Rye Win 2025 Caspar Bowden Privacy Award

A University of Maryland team was recently honored for impactful research uncovering global privacy risks in Wi-Fi-based Positioning Systems (WPS). 

Dave Levin, an associate professor of computer science, and Erik Rye, who earned his Ph.D. in computer science in May, received the prestigious 2025 Caspar Bowden Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies.

The award is named in memory of Caspar Bowden, a dedicated privacy advocate and former chief privacy adviser at Microsoft. It recognizes and celebrates research that embodies Bowden’s vision of safeguarding civil liberties through technology.

Levin and Rye were presented with the award during the 2025 Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), held July 14–19 in Washington, D.C. The honor includes a $3,000 prize and a commemorative statue sponsored by the Caspar Bowden Legacy Fund.

In May 2024, Rye and Levin published a study revealing that Apple’s WPS could allow attackers to track device movements worldwide by querying MAC addresses. The UMD team used this method to track military personnel entering Ukraine, follow refugees’ resettlement, and monitor device loss in Gaza—exposing serious privacy risks in conflict zones.

Click HERE to read the full article