Abstract: A method and system for radio-frequency proximity detection uses received signal strength variance to determine proximity distance. A signal is received from a transmitting device by a receiving device and the variance of the signal computed over time. One or more ranges can be established to determine whether or not the variance falls within the expected range. A lower variance indicates a shorter proximity distance and therefore signals from devices within a variance range are established as being within a particular distance range. Denial/granting of service, or restricting of services can be performed in response to determining that a transmitting device is outside of a variance range. Variance computations can be performed at both ends of a transceiver link and results communicated and compared at both transceivers to further improve the accuracy of the proximity determination.