Mobile phone tracking

Mobile phone tracking tracks the current position of a mobile phone even on the move. To locate the phone, it must emit at least the roaming signal to contact the next nearby antenna tower, but the process does not require an active call. GSM localisation is then done by multilateration based on the signal strength to nearby antenna masts
Mobile positioning, i.e. location based service that discloses the actual coordinates of a mobile phone bearer, is a technology used by telecommunication companies to approximate where a mobile phone, and thereby also its user (bearer), temporarily resides. The more properly applied term locating refers to the purpose rather than a positioning process. Such service is offered as an option of the class of location-based services

• Network based
• Handset based
• Hybrid

Technology

The technology of locating is based on measuring power levels and antenna patterns and uses the concept that a mobile phone always communicates wirelessly with one of the closest base stations, so if you know which base station the phone communicates with, you know that the phone is close to the respective base station.

Advanced systems determine the sector in which the mobile phone resides and roughly estimate also the distance to the base station. Further approximation can be done by interpolating signals between adjacent antenna towers. Qualified services may achieve a precision of down to 50 meters in urban areasRural and desolate areas may see miles between base stations and therefore determine locations less precisely. where mobile traffic and density of antenna towers (base stations) is sufficiently high.

GSM localization is the use of multilateration to determine the location of GSMmobile phones, usually with the intent to locate the user .

Localization-Based Systems can be broadly divided into:

• Network based
• Handset based
• Hybrid

Network Based

Network-based techniques utilize the service provider's network infrastructure to identify the location of the handset. The advantage of network-based techniques (from mobile operator's point of view) is that they can be implemented non-intrusively, without affecting the handsets.

The accuracy of network-based techniques varies, with cell identification as the least accurate and triangulation as the most accurate. The accuracy of network-based techniques is closely dependent on the concentration of base station cells, with urban environments achieving the highest possible accuracy.

One of the key challenges of network-based techniques is the requirement to work closely with the service provider, as it entails the installation of hardware and software within the operator's infrastructure. Often, a legislative framework, such as E911, would need to be in place to compel the cooperation of the service provider as well as to safeguard the privacy of the information.

Handset Based

Handset-based technology requires the installation of client software on the handset to determine its location for E-911 purposes. This technique determines the location of the handset by computing its location by cell identification, signal strengths of the home and neighboring cells, which is continuously sent to the carrier. In addition, if the handset is also equipped with GPS then significantly more precise location information is then sent from the handset to the carrier.

The key disadvantage of this technique (from mobile operator's point of view) is the necessity of installing software on the handset. It requires the active cooperation of the mobile subscriber as well as software that must be able to handle the different operating systems of the handsets. Typically, smart phones, such as one based on Symbian^[4], Windows Mobile , iPhone / iPhone OS, or Android, would be able to run such software.

One proposed work-around is the installation of embedded hardware or software on the handset by the manufacturers. This avenue has not made significant headway, due to the difficulty of convincing different manufacturers to cooperate on a common mechanism and to address the cost issue. Another difficulty would be to address the issue of foreign handsets that are roaming in the network.

According to global GSM structure and ETSI, the GSM service providers information flows through the control channel and the control channel is free to access.

Interestingly, all the present GSM modem/mobiles (Telit, SIMCOM, HTC, Nokia etc.) are coming with some extra feature to monitor the neighbouring cells and its RSSI value. Theoretically you should get 1+6=7 cell information (1 home cell ID, 7 BCCH info and 7 RSSI). If you know the location of 7 cells, it is possible to get a mobile phone location with very high accuracy (<100>

Hybrid

Hybrid positioning systems use a combination of network-based and handset-based technologies for location determination. One example would be Assisted GPS, which uses both GPS and network information to compute the location. Hybrid-based techniques give the best accuracy of the three but inherit the limitations and challenges of network-based and handset-based technologies.

Examples of LBS technologies

• Cell Identification - The accuracy of this method can be as good as a few hundred meters in urban areas, but as poor as 35 km in suburban areas and rural zones. The accuracy depends on the known range of the particular network base station serving the handset at the time of positioning.
• Enhanced Cell Identification - With this method, one can get a precision similar to Cell Identification, but for rural areas, with circular sectors of 550 meters.
• U-TDOA - Uplink-Time difference of arrival - The network determines the time difference and therefore the distance from each base station to the mobile phone.
• TOA - Time of arrival - Same as U-TDOA, but this technology uses the absolute time of arrival at a certain base station rather than the difference between two stations.
• AOA - Angle of arrival - AOA mechanism locates the mobile phone at the point where the lines along the angles from each base station intersect.
• E-OTD - Enhanced Observed Time Difference is similar to U-TDOA, but the location is estimated using measurements made by the mobile phone, rather than by base station.
• Assisted-GPS - A largely GPS-based technology, which uses an operator-maintained ground station to correct for GPS errors caused by the atmosphere/topography. Assisted-GPS positioning technology typically falls back to cell-based positioning methods when indoors or in an urban canyon environment.
• Hybrid - As mentioned above, hybrid positioning systems use different methods depending on which signals are locally available.

Operational purpose

In order to route calls to a phone the cell towers listen for a signal sent from the phone and negotiate which tower is best able to communicate with the phone. As the phone changes location, the antenna towers monitor the signal and the phone is roamed to an adjacent tower as appropriate.

By comparing the relative signal strength from multiple antenna towers a general location of a phone can be roughly determined. Other means is the antenna pattern that supports angular determination and phase discrimination.

Newer phones may also allow the tracking of the phone even when turned on and not active in a telephone call-. This results from the roaming procedures that perform hand over of the phone from one base station to another.

Bearer interest

A phone's location can be uploaded to a common web site where one's "friends and family" can view one's last reported position. Newer phones may have built-in GPS receivers which could be used in a similar fashion, but with much higher accuracy.

Privacy

Locating or positioning touches upon delicate privacy issues, since it enables someone to check where a person is without the person's consent. Strict ethics and security measures are strongly recommended for services that employ positioning, and the user must give an informed, explicit consent to a service provider before the service provider can compute positioning data from the user's mobile phone.

In Europe, where most countries have a constitutional guarantee on the secrecy of correspondence, location data obtained from mobile phone networks is usually given the same protection as the communication itself. The United States however has no explicit constitutional guarantee on the privacy of telecommunications, so use of location data is limited by law.

With tolling systems, as in Germany, the locating of vehicles is equally sensitive to the constitutional guarantee on the secrecy of correspondence and thus any further use of tolling information beyond deducting the road fee is prohibited. Even obviously criminal intent may not be interfered by such yet available technical means.

Officially, the authorities (like the police) can obtain permission to position phones in emergency cases where people (including criminals) are missing. In some instances law enforcement may even access a mobile phone's internal microphone to eavesdrop on local conversations while the phone is switched off

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is tracking some cases, including USA v. Pen Register, regarding government tracking of individuals.

Some "Free" tracking services allow the cellular telephone number being tracked to be added to telemarketers' lists.