For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it.
First, though, I ought to point out, that my girlfriend is a journalist, that I had her permission ("in principle ...") and that this was all in the name of science, bagging a Pulitzer and paying the school fees. You have nothing to worry about, or at least not from me.

But back to business. First I had to get hold of her phone. It wasn't difficult. We live together and she has no reason not to trust me, so she often leaves it lying around. And, after all, I only needed it for five minutes.
I unplugged her phone and took it upstairs to register it on a website I had been told about. It looks as if the service is mainly for tracking stock and staff movements: the Guardian, rather sensibly, doesn't want me to tell you any more than that. I ticked the website's terms and conditions without reading them, put in my debit card details, and bought 25 GSM Credits for £5 plus vat.

Almost immediately, my girlfriend's phone vibrated with a new text message. "Ben Goldacre has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with 'LOCATE'". I sent the requested reply. The phone vibrated again. A second text arrived: "WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you." I deleted both these text messages.

On the website, I see the familiar number in my list of "GSM devices" and I click "locate". A map appears of the area in which we live, with a person-shaped blob in the middle, roughly 100 yards from our home. The phone doesn't go off at all. There is no trace of what I'm doing on her phone. I can't quite believe my eyes: I knew that the police could do this, and telecommunications companies, but not any old random person with five minutes access to someone else's phone. I can't find anything in her mobile that could possibly let her know that I'm checking her location. As devious systems go, it's foolproof. I set up the website to track her at regular intervals, take a snapshot of her whereabouts automatically, every half hour, and plot her path on the map, so that I can view it at my leisure. It felt, I have to say, exceedingly wrong.

By the time my better half got home, I was so childishly over-excited that I managed to keep all of this secret for precisely 30 seconds. And to my disappointment, she wasn't even slightly freaked out. I don't know if that says good or bad things about our relationship and I wouldn't want you to come away thinking it's all a bit "Mr & Mrs Smith" around here. Having said that, we came up with at least five new uses for this technology between us in a few minutes, all far more sinister than anything I had managed to concoct on my own.

And that, for me, was the clincher. Your mobile phone company could make money from selling information about your location to the companies that offer this service. If you have any reason to suspect that your phone might have been out of your sight, even for five minutes, and there is anyone who might want to track you: call your phone company and ask it to find out if there is a trace on your phone. Anybody could be watching you. It could be me.
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Just another reason why I'm glad I don't have a cell phone.

That was truly creepy.

i believe anyone could be tracked with one..no thanks i dont like cell phones

Wow that was pretty interesting, but were you the only one that could access the phone once it was registered, or was her location avaliable to any user of the site? That would really be scary!!

I know the police and emergency services use this system to track missing persons, but the story above really has given me the shivers. At least it texts you but like the article says - if the person tracking it has access to your phone then you won't know. Saying all that though anyone who tracks my phone would get very bored; I'm agoraphobic and never leave the house. Also my mobile has been sat next to my bed for the last week with a dead battery LOL

Still, at least now if any of us get a text saying "Mad Stalker Person has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with 'LOCATE'" we know to not text Locate back... Or alternatively if you're feeling particularly masochistic....

100 yards is a (kinda) big radius if you live in the city. At least it is comforting to think that the location was trangulated by the cell's signal rather than GPS'd. Then the service could tell what ROOM she was in!

That's why I always tell my kids and family to dial 112 from a mobile if they need an emergency service; that number automatically triangulates your location when the call is picked up rather than a 999 call needing it to be done manually First Aid courses are great hehe. Btw - that info is for the UK, unsure what other countries have in place...

Still, only pinpointing to within a 100 meter radius leaves an area of about 30,000 m2 to search for me. In a city, well, yer dead.

I thought emergency services could locate you to about 10m? Don't they use GPS?

How could they do that unless you had a GPS equiped phone?
I don't know if they are or not. But I was going by the website's ability at the start of this thread, which was stated as 100 yards
I think commercially available GPS might even do better than 10m.

Good point I was going by a documentary program I saw a few months ago for the 10m reference; I may have missed them saying only if your phone is GPS equipped

But saying that, even if the 112 service only narrows you down to 100m even in a city it's better than nothing. If you don't know where you are and give a basic landmark reference such as a bridge or the name of a business near you they can then locate the landmarks you gave them within that 100m.

In any case, you are right. It is creepy.
And ya know that soon they will offer GPS phones standard. Just a matter of time. Then someone will offer the same service as above.
Can you imagine getting a call asking you to "move a little to the right....?"

Let's hope that someone also invents software that can block the above mentioned tracking software. I had a lot of stalking problems with my ex husband just after we split; it gives me chills thinking that people like that can now access this technology so cheaply.

Don't take me as being mean, I really don't intend to be, but this might sound sarcastic...

We can't wait for software devolpers or anyone else for that matter to protect us. We have to be proactive ourselves. Simply calling the cell company and asking if we are being traced, not ironing our clothes while wearing them and the like! :-)

In a way, we would be depending upon the same technology to protect us, that betrayed us in the first place.

I don't think it needs GPS? Can't they do it off the towers? Not positive, but pretty sure they can...

Sure they can, and do. But not with the precision of GPS.
GPS is satellite locating; the towers are used to triangulate a position.

True, but to what extent do we take this? Call them every week/month just in case someone would put a trace on me? I'm talking about a simple piece of software that would prevent a trace being placed so easily. It's basically the same as saying we shouldn't use anti-virus software as we depend on it and we could easily just search out and delete the viruses ourselves. Believe me if I had the brains/technology to invent it myself I would

Point taken.

I think it has to be both.

Whoa . . .

Glad I don't use a cellphone . . I hate cellphones!

Actually GPS also uses triangulation; There are enough GPS satellites in orbit that three are above the horizon at any given time, which then triangulate the position of the GPS. It does do it more precisely than towers, though.

You can track my cell. The only place it stays is on a table in my room.

For those tracking my phone, I have now moved it downstairs

Here`s hoping my partner does not use it on me!

The bus stop is 50 yards from my ex-GF.

I can see the chat when I get in....

`You were at your ex`s for 5 mins today..... enough to play la la la 3 times!`

`Honest hun.... I was at the bus stop`

danger danger

my ex used to accuse me of having an affair with my best female friend because I used to "talk to her too much" When I eventually left him he claimed for 6 months that I'd left him for her... Never mind the fact he was a *censored* and that was why I left him LOL denial is a wonderful thing...