Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Bluetooth trackers can help you develop interesting investigations. This team started using trackers while following two cars from Germany to Siberia, then a parcel from Prague to Moscow. In late 2024, they tracked more than 230 letters sent within Germany, using up to 80 trackers simultaneously. For almost 18 months they tracked 24 items of electronic waste from Germany to places as far afield as Pakistan.

In this session, the team will share the learnings and the technology behind all these projects and the scraping tools and software behind them. They will also bring some trackers and covers to inspire colleagues to use these devices, and share lessons learnt from ongoing collaborations in various countries where other journalists and newsrooms licensed them to help them move their projects forward.