Can a Cell Phone's Location be Tracked?

      Yes, your cell phone's location is being tracked. The cellular system is designed to track cell phone locations by triangulating the signal between two or more cell phone towers. By comparing the relative signal strength from multiple towers a general location of a phone can be determined. The accuracy of this type of location may vary from a few hundred yards to several miles depending on distance from cell towers and propagation variables. Newer phones equipped with GPS receivers can pinpoint your phone's location to within a few feet.

      In order for the cellular communications system to work, the system must know which cell towers that your phone is in range of. It will then assign your phone to the tower with the strongest signal and avoid interference between your phone and another by not allowing other phones to connect to that tower on your assigned frequency.

      The FCC's E911 initiative requires cell phone carriers to be able to pinpoint their customers' location within 100 meters, so emergency responders can reach them in a crisis. Cell phone carriers are no longer allowed to activate a phone that does not have a GPS chip installed. Older phones without GPS capability can only be used if they were activated prior to this requirement. Although the impetus behind location-based tracking was public safety, many companies are exploring and exploiting commercial opportunities as well.

      Because people with cell phones generally always carry their phone with them, the thriving market for personal information has something that it has never had a chance to get: the exact locations at all times of more than 200 million people in the United States and many more worldwide. Some of the kinds of services becoming available or considered include:

• Parents tracking their children's location through their cell phone.
• Location, directions, and mapping services.
• Social location services, which allow friends and / or family members to track each other's location.
• Location based advertising and marketing directed at cell phone users.

      Of course, if a consumer can do it, chances are that a stalker or predator might be able to access and use these services as well. Exactly who is using this capability, how legal it is, whether laws are being respected, whether secret government surveillance is being practiced, and how much private information is being sold is not known. It is clear, however, that this capability exists. (15)(16)