Can a phone be privately tracked by its gps signal?

TechnoCorruption

TechnoCorruption

TechnoCorruption

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With the inclusion of gps in most phones now it got me curious as to whether people could privately track other peoples locations.

I know phone companies can do and it would be beneficial in emergency situations but can it be done privately?

I don't really like the thought of people being able to track you via gps. Imagine pulling a sick day off of work only for your boss to track you at weatherspoons :D or telling the missus you have a headache tonight only for her to find out that your out with your mates. :D
 
It could only be done if the GPS receiver was switched on without the user knowing, and I'm not sure how you'd pull that off... The hit to the battery life would also be quite a giveaway.

As for phone companies tracking phones - that would be done by triangulating the mobile signal, not the GPS.
 
it can be done, i've written an app that does just that.

log into website, click 'track' and it sends an sms to the phone, which posts its location back to be plotted on a googlemap as marker/trail
 
vonhelmet said:
It could only be done if the GPS receiver was switched on without the user knowing, and I'm not sure how you'd pull that off... The hit to the battery life would also be quite a giveaway.

As for phone companies tracking phones - that would be done by triangulating the mobile signal, not the GPS.
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Thats good to hear then, I really don't like the thought of people knowing where you are at all times.

I think I am getting more and more paranoid as I get older lol
 
for the google users there's latitude, but then your loctaion is shown only to people you include in your friends list. it updates your location through the gps on your phone, but you can also manually enter a location if you so choose.

I have the htc desire and it's gps seems to think I'm like 4-5miles away from my actual location(seems to be an issue unless I'm in a major city/town) so if my boss was to check if I took sicky I'd be in trouble :)
 
TechnoCorruption said:
How would it do that if the gps is turned off though or is that tracking via something else, like gprs?
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on a modern phone, having the GPS switched 'on' doesn't use any power - until an app actually requests a location, then it fires it up (which does use power)

however, without the gps - it'll fall back to cell triangulation and wifi (known locations of hotspots). Admittedly i live in a city centre, but my phone can get my location correct to within 50m without using the GPS.

However, no phone has apps like these built in - so you'd kinda know about it if you installed one!!
 
On Android:

If you aren't running a task killer then you have no idea what is running in the background. All it would have taken is a few minutes of inattention for your friends to install a security program. Wavesecure lets you turn on the location, locking, and a scream alarm remotely. All you'd know about it is these random-text SMS's coming into your phone.

You can also install a second wavesecure program which locks your phone if you remove the Wavesecure, and viceversa. Therefore you can't remove it.

Some third party roms have wavesecure built in to them.
 
I have the htc desire and it's gps seems to think I'm like 4-5miles away from my actual location(seems to be an issue unless I'm in a major city/town) so if my boss was to check if I took sicky I'd be in trouble :)
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Weird, my gps puts me within 50 meters or less
 
iPhone has many of these apps, i had GPS Track, but it has to be turned on.

There is an APP for the iPhone i am told that allows you to Track it to within 20 feet, activate the loud speaker, listen in on calls, screen share and brick it all from a PC on the net, what i didnt like was the fact it was a CYDIA App?
 
On my BB9700 i have an app called smartguard which allows me to track my phone at any time..also allows me to self destruct the phone ie wipe it remotely and render it useless amongst other features...its not free but i won it through crackberry through a competition...the lifetime app costs around $99 i think but i didnt pay as i won it.

Brilliant app that also allows me to backup all my data remotely.
 
TechnoCorruption said:
With the inclusion of gps in most phones now it got me curious as to whether people could privately track other peoples locations.

I know phone companies can do and it would be beneficial in emergency situations but can it be done privately?

I don't really like the thought of people being able to track you via gps. Imagine pulling a sick day off of work only for your boss to track you at weatherspoons :D or telling the missus you have a headache tonight only for her to find out that your out with your mates. :D
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yeah so can the AA/RAC etc
when i have rung them up they already know where i phoned them from
 
Electroshadow said:
just wondering what prompted the question...:o:rolleyes:
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I am not really a fan of the big brother generation that we are evolving into. Cameras popping up in lots of streets, government looking to track phone calls and internet usage.

I was just paranoid I guess as to whether you could be tracked by someone that knew your phone number. Call me old fashioned but I like a sense of privacy, though that seems to be lost on a generation that feels the need to tweet to the world that they just ate a couple of jaffa cakes. :p
 
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