Cell Phone Location

A cell phone can still be tracked to a general area even without the GPS feature enabled.

If teh phone is on it is constantly in contact with the service providers relay towers (any time you have a "in service" signal your phone is communicating with one or more relay sites).

The provider can calculate your approximate location based on which relay sites your phone is connecting with. If your phone is connecting to 3 or more sites they can figure things to within a 1000 ft or so (assuming someone wanted to take the time to do the calculations) where the GPS feature can pinpoint you with 3 or 4 ft within a matter of seconds.

Don't look now, but...

So what if I want to know the location of a call that was received at a specific time, but the that particular cell phone is turned off at all other times?

It only appears to be turned off, Mister Anderson...

If you were a carrier you could search your switch access logs and see which relay sites were accessed to make the call and the signal strength readings from those sites and do the calculations and you'd know approx. where the person was when the call was made.

Once the phone is turned off they'd have no way of knowing where you went.

I guess it would pretty much take an act of God to get that done???

Nah. Just a warrant signed by a judge.

(They certianly aren't going to do it and give you any info if you just call up and ask them to.)

I assume that unless they're serious death threats or something, the police won't be very interested...at least not enough to get a warrant? How long is that information available? I doubt all that info can be stored indefinately.

They already know it was you, Mister Anderson. It's only a matter of time until they pinpoint your location. There's no point in resisting... they'll go easier on you if you turn yourself in.

There would have to be some sort of legal action taking place - either a criminal investigation by the police or a civil suit (I think you can get a subpoena for evidence in a civil suit that would work).

The FCC requires all carriers to keep all records of call data for 3 years. How long they keep it after that is up to them.

is it just me or is this dude not answering questions and just being weird whats the point of joining a forum site if all your going to do do is make no sense no one is laughing its not funny

He's ok he's just a cheesehead, I am am evil, diabolical genius, oh wait thats Slappy, uh, carry on.

Ah, but SidneyPerson, the question was answered, wasn't it?

Should I also mention OB capitalizes and punctuates? Dare I ask how you know he doesn't make a few people laugh, and many smile?