Talk:Mobile phone tracking

Misleading sentence on A-GPS
It seems that the line on Assisted GPS is misleading - the description sounds like WAAS/EGNOS, but A-GPS is to do with faster start up. While A-GPS could in future be used to provide a better WAAS/EGNOS implementation, at present this is not usually done. Daveemtb (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed several misstatements on aGPS in this article.Carwon (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Legal everywhere?
I remember hearing about this technology being controversial but allowed in the UK. Is this allowed in all countries, in most, or just in the UK? Does anyone else have information about it being allowed or disallowed in a particular country? Gronky 17:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes Pemole (talk) 08:32, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

phone on or off too?
Some, such as Richard Stallman, say that phones don't have to be on. Just having the battery in suffices. The first line of this article currently says that phones have to be on. Can someone comment on which is correct? Gronky 11:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

stallman talks alot of crap but basically it depends on if the phone has been alterd, with modified software/firmware anything is possible! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.210.78 (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, a phone that is physically off (no juice) cannot transmit anything, no matter what software is installed. But the "off button" doesn't turn a cellphone physically off, it's just a standby mode with or without maintaining connection to the network. If a cellphone can sound an alarm when it's "off", it isn't really off. Some of them also have reserve batteries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.12.26 (talk) 02:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You will be informed on a need-to-know-basis and you don't need to know. Just make sure to carry it always with you and please talk slowly and articulate clearly. 85.76.223.16 (talk) 07:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 7659276 110.5.115.50 (talk) 08:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

How it works?
Is it done by triangular measurement of towers, 3 towers needed? Three towers in a triangle, a cellphone somewhere in between, measure which is closer to the tower... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frap (talk • contribs) 01:18, 23 June 2007
 * Basically yes (triangulation) plus on a tower there is often not 1 antenna per network, but 3 of them (each covering 120°), so this already gives a hint to the general direction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.12.26 (talk) 02:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

How and what website can I track a cell phone Rexruby (talk) 18:37, 16 February 2016 (UTC)


 * 7659276 110.5.115.50 (talk) 08:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Doing the merge
In September 2007, a merge was proposed of this article with GSM localisation and Positioning (telecommunications) (note that the latter has a more general name but the article content is just about mobile phone tracking). That proposal had three people in favour and no one opposing it, but no one actually did the merge. Now someone new has re-proposed this merge. This time, I'm just going to go ahead and do a rough merge of the articles rather than waiting for someone else. --Gronky (talk) 13:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Go ahead - I'm just adding my name. --Matt Lewis (talk) 12:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It appears to me (years later) that the merge with GSM localisation was done, but not the merge with Positioning (telecommunications). I would suggest that further reorganization is required.  I think the top level article should be the positioning one, where positioning implicitly refers to the positioning of mobile electronic devices such as cell phones (which is the topic that people are probably looking for).  The GSM localisation article should be merged into the positioning article. Qwavel (talk) 17:34, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Also by non-phone companies
There was an interesting story on Slashdot today about a shopping centre doing it's own GSM tracking.

The article provided two links that might be good sources for references for a new section in this article:


 * http://www.pathintelligence.com/website-aboutus.htm
 * http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3945496.ece

--Gronky (talk) 08:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

question
how to know if our car or phone is been tracked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.243.178 (talk) 04:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Use this capability for natural disaster
Can we use this capability for tracking victims' location in case of natural disaster (earthquake, tsunami, land slides, etc.) ? What is the legal impact ? 12 October 2009 --Anto sarosa (talk) 13:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

For missiles
Didn't they put up a missile this one guys ass using his phone signal as the target? Handy. Anybody remember what his name was or got a link? 85.76.223.16 (talk) 07:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Article scope and title
What is this article about?

The article title is too narrow. These same techniques can be used to track any mobile device (e.g. a netbook, devices used for casual tracking of your kids). Perhaps the article should be renamed to "mobile device tracking".

Also, the first paragraph makes the scope of the article unclear. It appears that the article is about locating mobile devices in general, but the 2nd sentence states that a cellular roaming signal is needed and this is not true unless this article is just about network techniques. For example, an old phone with Nokia maps can be used as a GPS unit with handset based location (i.e. GPS) even if it has no cellular service at all.

The word 'tracking' in the title suggests that the articles scope is limited to techniques that allow the device's location to be communicated over the network, but I don't think that is intended. Why is the word 'tracking' in the title.

I believe that this article is about technologies used to determine the location of a mobile device, and I would suggest that the title should be something like "locating mobile devices"?

If no one objects or responds then I will change the first paragraph to reflect this. I won't change the title for now.

Qwavel (talk) 22:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, now I understand. The confusion came from the merger with the GSM localization article. But I still think there is a problem. The title 'mobile phone tracking' suggests a much broader topic then 'GSM localization'. I think that the 'GSM localization' material should have become a section within the overall article.

Qwavel (talk) 18:22, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit to E-OTD description
In EOTD, the mobile phone does not necessarily estimate the location, but can report the timing measurements back to a server, which then calculates the location. Note that the Wikipedia E-OTD page has been updated with considerably more references, so no further reference is inserted here as there is a link to the E-OTD page.

The second sentence ('The precision of this method depends on the number of available LMUs in the networks, varying from 50 to 200 m.') has been deleted because accuracy depends not only on the number of LMUs but other factors such as environment type (e.g. suburban or urban) and  basestation density. It would be possible to expand the entry for a discussion of these factors, but then it would not be consistent with the other entries in the “Examples of LBS technologies”, some of which have a few words on accuracy but most make no mention of it. For the time being I think it is better to just delete this sentence dealing with accuracy of E-OTD, but I am considering revamping the whole “Examples of LBS” section to provide a consistent comparison of accuracy for all the technologies. Any thoughts or assistance with this are welcome.

Chris Cdrane (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

See also: Skynet???
And a link to the disambiguation page. I fail to see the relevance and ask anyone who understands the intended meaning to fix the link, or delete it, if no such sense can be made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.49.124.107 (talk) 14:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * what? no. no need to discuss skynet. --RichardMills65 (talk) 03:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Removed links
Following links can be added:
 * Life360: a GSM localization app
 * Family by Sygic; another GSM localization app

KVDP (talk) 11:30, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Network-based vs. SIM-based
These are two sections in the article, but aren't they the same thing? RenniePet (talk) 11:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if they're the same thing, but I wanted to point out the dubious nature of the "Network-based" section, again. There have been no sources cited for years now, I cannot find any evidence for any such thing as "binary sectoral location", and mobile phones don't use "triangulation", they use multilateration, as already pointed out in the article, and maybe trilateration too. And this is not to mention the effective grammar errors caused by weird run-on sentences with lots of commas. I think this section needs to be overhauled or deleted soon. Look forward to comments. Eflatmajor7th (talk) 07:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * There is definitely such a thing as network-based. It can use triangulation (angle of receipt, sector etc), trilateration (via time-of-flight), and signal strength. See http://www2.ucy.ac.cy/~laoudias/pages/penek/deliverables/D3.pdf. I don't think tri vs multi vs one is worth having here, location can be estimated with only one tower by combining techniques. I do however agree with your scepticism about BSL - I can't find any reference to that either. Rewrite rather than delete, I'll have a crack at it presently. Bwooce (talk) 09:19, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

links
Perhaps the following needs mentioning in article: Talk:Vehicle tracking system KVDP (talk) 11:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

United States
There should be a succinct summary of the situation in the US, rather than this UNDUE overload of information. I hope someone better informed than me can have a crack at it, but failing that, I propose to try to summarise it as best I can. Pinkbeast (talk) 02:13, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Merging articles
I recommended merging this article with cellphone surveillance, but looking again I see this article is primarily around GPS tracking (must have had some blinders on yesterday), so actually not a good article for merger - but maybe for some more cross linking?. Discussion is here for those who want to participate in the discussion: Talk:Cellphone surveillance Tecuixin (talk) 14:11, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Legal commercial SIM based tracking
Some networks allow tracking by SIM triangulation only.

See e.g. Poland, here: https://www.gdziejestdziecko.pl/

-> Let us add these.

Myself I am interested in a list of such countries and providers, much more useful than the current Special:Longpages - political support of X, list of episodes of Y, or a table with critters embedded in goo in country Z (check it there).

Zezen (talk) 13:23, 18 September 2020 (UTC)