GPS Tracking on Cell Phones

[Hotsauce]

Ok, so I was talking to a customer the other day and he said he could track his drivers with their cell phones. This got me wondering...is there a way my company can track the cell phone they gave me and find out my location??? I do not have an office, I work from home, but I am supposed to be on the road in my market. Is there a way that they can see where I am?

I have a Blackberry on Verizons network. The company gave me the phone and they get the bill and what not. The technology doesn't seem that far fetched...they have an IT department that monitors the laptops...

Anyone ever heard of this?

[dimbee]

Yeah, they can definitely track you. There are lots of add-on programs with cell companies allowing them to see where the phones they have on the program are located.

[cookinwithgas]

There should be a setting to disable the GPS on your phone.

[dimbee]

Won't make a difference- that setting is for 911

[Go To Girl]

Many cell phone companies market that ability for parents when getting a phone for their kids - and that's just a basic phone.

[Darth Biscuit]

Hotsauce, your company called and said that they didn't care where you are at, but were going to fire you if you didn't get that damn nasty ass gay signature picture off of here...

[Guest]

but please keep your avatar

[Delhommey]

My favorite cat and mouse game with cell phones was back in the early part of this decade in Europe and Asia. It used to be (might still be, I dunno) that different countries had different ring tones.

As countries are pretty close together, it wouldn't be uncommon if someone "accidentally" took a wrong turn and ended up in Amsterdam instead of Brussels. They could be given away, however, if they had a smart boss that called them and heard a different ringtone than he/she was expecting.

People eventually got smart, and they started selling a service that would fake a ringtone on your phone for a fee. So you could gamble your life away in Macau, and when the boss called it would ring like you were in your meeting in Hong Kong.

[cookinwithgas]

One time I took a wrong turn in Switzerland and ended up in Austria even though I wanted to go to Munich. The one border guy let us cross over and make a U Turn. Love the EU.

[dexterpyro]

Hasnt anyone watched any csi or any crime drama on the tele??? Even if you turn the gps funtion off, if your phone is still on they can triangulate your position and find you...This stuff is real watch the discovery channel every now and then...this technology came from our military so they could find soildiers and pilots position.....So if you are hiding from the cops ...turn your cell off lol

[Kevin Greene]

Supposodely Verizon now includes the closest cell tower on every call you make giving your location on thier statements.

Lojack also now sells a GPS unit when put in a car will give you present location, speed, basically everywhere your car goes accessed through your home PC. . I'd be in a lot of trouble if my folks had that when I was a kid.

[Delhommey]

They've been able to tell what tower you're on as long as they've had cell phones. When I was there, they'd actually tell what trunk you were on rather than the specifictower, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were now.

And, um, triangulation wasn't invented in the Pentagon. lol

[Davidson Deac II]

Hasnt anyone watched any csi or any crime drama on the tele??? Even if you turn the gps funtion off, if your phone is still on they can triangulate your position and find you...This stuff is real watch the discovery channel every now and then...this technology came from our military so they could find soildiers and pilots position.....So if you are hiding from the cops ...turn your cell off lol

The military has been doing it for a long time, and they started using it to find bad guys. In fact, GPS came about in part as a way to provide accurate targeting for missiles. I remember using GPS as far back as 1987.

[pantherfool]

I have an example of the upside to this. I was robbed at gun point about 1 1/2 yrs ago. My attackers took about 500 cash and my cell phone. The investigating officer asked what kind of phone I had. I told him and he showed me his and it was the same phone. I didn't realize that it had GPS. They had the bad guys in about 20 mins. I'm not complaining.