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Cell Phone Tracking In the UK

Posted by Zonk on Sun Feb 26, 2006 02:21 PM
from the beep-beep-beep dept.
Communications Privacy Security
jvlb writes "The BBC reports on cell phone tracking systems now available in Britain. The correspondent addresses the privacy and security issues that ensue." From the article: "With more and more children owning mobile phones, special attention needs to be given to who can track them. If you are not a genuine parent or guardian, the code requires location services to check that both the tracker and the person being tracked can prove they are consenting adults. Mr Macleod says: 'The person that is to be located has to demonstrate to the service provider they are at least 16 years old.'"
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  • Brilliant! (Score:3, Funny)

    by MonsterOfTheLake (880659) on Sunday February 26 2006, @02:27PM (#14804724) Homepage
    This should work out well, I'm sure it won't be abused.
    • What kind of abuse since both parties need to become into an agreement to setup the system?

      Beside that, I am pretty much sure tracking of any citizen can be done by authorities if needed. And this technology is there for a while and had not been made publicly available before. So, if you fear BB, it's just too late!

      • You barely need the phone for 5mn to setup the tracking, a guy has already used it to track his girlfriend.

        He told his gf what he was going to do and got authorization, but basically everything that's required is to get sole access to the switched-on phone for 5 minutes: setup the tracking, receive SMS, delete SMS, you're done, the owner of the phone is tracked without his knowledge. With this kind of "requirements", you can setup a tracking for quite a large number of people...

        • So, basically, password protect your cell-phone and never let someone else you don't trust use it.

          BTW, could it be cancelled easily as it can be setup?

          It should and it circumvent completely this kind of problem, since you can always cancel your authorization, anytime and in less than 5 minutes.

      • >> What kind of abuse since both parties need to become into an agreement to setup the system?

        The copy of 2600 [2600.org] sitting in front of me (22.4) has an article called "How to track any UK GSM phone (without the user's consent)".

        In a nutshell, it involves using an online number spoofing service to OK the request for tracking. So much for the agreement bit....
      • > What kind of abuse since both parties need to become
        > into an agreement to setup the system?

        No you don't - you simply need both parties' PHONES. Big difference. Who doesn't have access to their wifes/girlfriends/child's phone for the purposes of sending the "ok to track me" text message?

        A decent system should tell the tracked user that they are being tracked (and by whom) each time their position is requested by the tracking party.
    • ... and you'd have seen this about a month ago.

  • 16 years old (Score:3, Interesting)

    by biocute (936687) on Sunday February 26 2006, @02:31PM (#14804739) Homepage
    I don't know how many 16-year-old teenagers would give consent to being tracked, while on the other hand, those need being tracked the most (under 10 or so) cannot legally allow parents to do so?
  • Big Brother is alive and well across the Pond. I wonder if they want George Bush to make up for what happened in the American Revolution? :P

  • Should we do it just because we can? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nx (194271) on Sunday February 26 2006, @02:35PM (#14804751)
    TFA mentions several reasons as to why one would want to use this service, viz. tracking your employees or your children. Oh, whatever did we do before this technology came to save us? It seems to me that while some technology I would deem harmful (such as most surveillance tech) does have its uses - if criminals communicate via email, then the police should be able to read their email (with a warrant). However, this is one area where this does not apply. Giving your child a cell phone does not make them harder to keep track of, thus warranting use of this technology. On the contrary; just call the kid.

    I think potential for abuse, in this case, outweighs whatever good may come from this. Please, kill this market by not using their service. Please.
      • More and more I think about this and I find that it probably won't be used directly for abuse by law enforcement or political officials. What will happen is that the infrastructure necessary to support this will be enlarged. That infrastructure will require care and maintenance by human beings. Those people are socially connected with other people.

        The abuse will come from people who are connected to the people who care and maintain the infrastructure for this. In short, more than enabling the trouncing

  • Old news... (Score:4, Informative)

    by aallan (68633) <aa&astro,ex,ac,uk> on Sunday February 26 2006, @02:59PM (#14804848)

    This is such old news, it was initially worked over by The Guardian [guardian.co.uk] at the start of the month, and it even got picked up by Slashdot [slashdot.org]. But it was old news even then, you've been able to do this sort of thing for years. I've talked about it a lot [babilim.co.uk] in my blog...

    Al.
    • Nope, its very old news. I implemented a location lookup system for a major UK roadside breakdown service (so if you've broken down in the middle of nowhere they can find out roughly where you are).

      As for abuse... well, lets say that during testing, my location was repeatedly looked up whilst I travelled between the customer and my office, by my colleagues, so it is very easy. in fact, they had to add a audit trail to the lookups so that callcentre staff would stop looking up their boyfriend's (or whoever)

  • SIM card swap (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PornMaster (749461) on Sunday February 26 2006, @03:01PM (#14804853) Homepage
    I would imagine that kids who were off and up to no good would pop in a different SIM card and meet up with their friends. The thing about cell phone tracking is that it would be quite hard to prove someone wasn't just out of range (elevator, basement), so even if the tracking were to say, "No Data Available", you can't assume that the kid turned off the phone or changed SIMs.
    • IAAMTE (I am a mobile telecom engineer)

      We can still track them at IMEI (phone serial number) level.
      • You can't if they have switched to a different network.
      • IMEI can be changed with a laptop and a cable in a matter of seconds. Not always inexpensive for the hardware, but if you don't want to be tracked or bothered by the 3 letter agencies... I'm sure it breaks a few laws in one or two countries, but whatever. They want to over-extend on the rules of intercept, then I'll swap my IMEI every day. A new sim card where I am at is about $0.50 US.

        What really screws it all up is that your identity can be fairly well confirmed by who you are calling.

        -- ex 'them'
    • I know of several places here in Perth (australia) where I dont get cellphone service (or didnt last time I was there) and where I had to move outside to get it. (the last case I can remember was when I was inside a k-mart store and had to go outside the store to get service)
      • Hell, it happens in the bathroom where I work in midtown Manhattan (New York). It happens in the subway. It happens at various times all around the city of New York. It also happens as I head out into Connecticut or New Jersey, at various points. I don't really buy the "we have service everywhere" people, though I did manage pretty well with a triband when I was based out of London and went to Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, even on the train moving at high speed.

  • The serveillence society (Score:3, Insightful)

    by danratherfoe (915756) on Sunday February 26 2006, @03:07PM (#14804882)
    The issue of tracking and surveillance is not one that is confined to the UK. All of the cell phones sold in America since 2001 have had the capability to be tracked down to a radius of only a few feet by a combination of triangulation and GPSs technology. Anytime the government wants to, they can know where you are -- if you have your phone with you -- even if that phone is not on (see http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBYEM9DQ3E.html [tbo.com]). The capability also exists to turn your phone into a passive listening device even when you do not think that it is on.

    Now consider this: in Texas, there is a plan afoot -- already approved by the legislature -- to turn over 6000 miles of preexisting roads to a foreign Spanish company so that the company can charge tolls on those roads. Drivers will be required to have an RFID tag in their car with will allow their movements to be tracked and cataloged that company (and the state will have access to that information, see http://www.austintollparty.com/ [austintollparty.com]). This is not just confined to Texas, there are similar plans in many other states.

    The question has to be asked: why is there is this massive push for the governement to know where we are all of the time and have the ability to listen to us. This may just be the insipiant footprint of a police state.

    • Foreign and Spanish - amazing!
    • By any ordinary measure, America already is a police state. One that is far more technologically-advanced (and thus potentially far more invasive) than any that have preceeded it, with the possible exception of Great Britain. The fact that the abuses that invariably occur with the arrogation of such power haven't reached the level of, say, the old East German government is irrelevant. America is a police state held in check by tradition and the tattered remnants of our Constitution, and once our educational
        • That has got to be the biggest pile of crap I have read here in a while (and you have some stiff competition).

          Learn to spell, learn how to form a coherent argument, *then* share your wisdom with the world.

  • The battle between functionality and privacy. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by keilinw (663210) * on Sunday February 26 2006, @03:14PM (#14804915) Homepage Journal
    Its funny how my perception of the world changes depending on the current situation. I firmly believe in a person's right to privacy. However, I've often thought that it would be very useful to be able to track people with cell phones. The HYPOTHETICAL solution would be that those who consent to tracking could broadcast their locations to their friends, thus making it easy to know if one is in proximity to someone they would like to meet up with.

    On the flip side, as we all know, are the privacy issues that stem from this. And, in this day and age I'm certain that there is a lot of room for abuse. The author of the BBC article certainly proved this to be the case. Is is really ever possible to achieve this hypothetical solution where only those who consent to being tracked are tracked?

    The BBC author brings up another interesting point that I didn't think of before --the issue of tracking children or minors. For some reason I always assumed that the greatest benefit from this technology would be to track your children and perhaps even keep tabs on whether or not they are visiting "forbidden" areas. Obviously this is not the case as children cannot legally consent to being tracked! So what about that GPS tracking collar thing? How do the children consent there?

    The battle between functionality and privacy continues in full force. I'm sure that we'd all like the CONVENIENCE of RFID, biometric scanners, wireless credit cards, wireless passports, etc... but at what price and at what risk to our privacy? Certainly large governments will be the major players behind such schemes. Who knows... for a while privacy rights may be protected... but what about the future? Since the technologies are there then the room for abuse is also there....

    Some food for thought.

    Matt Wong

    http://www.themindofmatthew.com [themindofmatthew.com]
    • >The HYPOTHETICAL solution would be that those who consent to tracking could broadcast their locations to their friends

      What if your location information went out only to people on your IM buddy list, as part of your presence information? How useful would it be to scroll through a list and see that Kathleen is Not Busy, @ laundromat next to Caligula Pizza, Current Mood Hungry?
  • ... code requires location services to check that both the tracker and the person being tracked can prove they are consenting adults.

    Oh, how nice of them to keep their toys to themselves. I doubt that people wanting cell service are asked for their consent when the phone company or government agent tracks them. Tracking is creepy and not something customers are demanding. Code should require the phone companies to provide phones that can not be routinely tracked. Instead, the price of modern convenien

    • As I understand it, if a cell phone is connected to the network, it is pretty easy to figure out where it is. I assume that having GPS on the phone improves the precision. The only way to make a cell phone that is untrackable is to turn it off.
      • I assume that having GPS on the phone improves the precision.

        Yes to a few yards. The only way to make a cell phone that is untrackable is to turn it off.

        I'm told that does not work. If you really don't want to be tracked you have leave it behind.

  • I won't bother linking to their site, since it doesn't feature the article, but this quarter's "2600" magazine has a feature on hacking this system. Essentially, it involves sending the verification SMS to the mobile to be tracked, and then spoofing the confirmation using one of the many available "fake" SMS message services to be found online.

    Deeply dodgy, and were I to be of a paranoid nature, I would definitely be carrying my cellphone switched off.

  • Old stuff (Score:2, Interesting)

    by russint (793669)
    When I lived in Finland (5+ years ago), my carrier [sonera.fi] had some sort of tracking service. Basicly, you just sent an sms with a keyword to a specific number, and got a reply with an address.
  • The article mentions there is no protection from location tracking other than the companies' Code of Conduct.

    It is not well-known that the same holds for reverse billing text messages ("premium SMS"); anyone can sign up to send these unsolicitedly.

    For example, you can write a short (less than 50 lines) bash script send-50p.sh that takes a mobile phone number and reverse-charges the receipient 50 pence (or, in fact anything up to 5 pounds per message) by sending them e.g. an empty (" ") text message - an

  • Years old, but still cool. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by caluml (551744) <slashdot&spamgoeshere,calum,org> on Sunday February 26 2006, @05:55PM (#14805543) Homepage
    I have access to one of these systems, and I've been tracking myself on a website of mine for years now. Just for fun, really. (And to see if it would be a way police could monitor speeding - better to know if it's possible before they do it. :) It's not - there are too many errors - the cell sizes near motorways are too large and vague). The first thing anyone asks when I tell them is - can you track anyone? And I tell them, yes, on this network. The second thing they ask: Can you tell me where my girlfriend/boyfriend is right now? To which I tell them: I could, but I'm not going to.
    It's scary. I think a lot of people would abuse it given half a chance.
    You can sign up for developer accounts with most phone networks in the UK - but the queries are expensive. 10p each with a minimum of 5000 per month - that sort of thing.
  • Doesn't anyone worry about kids being tracked by childabusers?

  • Let's break this down, once and for all (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Catbeller (118204) on Sunday February 26 2006, @09:24PM (#14806117) Homepage
    Phone tracking is bad. RFID tracking of people, bad. Spying on people, BAD BAD BAD.

    GPS or other tracking is BAD. I won't buy a new cell phone made after 2004 because they have government mandated GPS trackers built in, whether you want it or not. Software controlled shutoffs are garbage; the phone company can switch it back on if they so desire, probably without letting you know, at the request of any figure of authority.

    Give me at least a phone where the GPS is a physical module that I can depower or remove. Anything else is a little government/corporate/anybody-who-cares-to spying machine.

    As for kidnappers and, oh god, here we go, pedophiles: um, they'd throw the phone in a metal box or down a sewer or onto a freight train bound for Toronto.

    Tracking people on cellphones should be done only with the permission of the user. Anything else is just police state horse manure.

    I am beginning to realize that my generation, which grew up with an expectation of privacy and dignity, is not explaining the problem to newer generations which grew up in schools with dogs searching their lockers, with strip searches, metal detectors, ID badges, probably anal cavity searches done at will on their persons for no damned reason at all. I've only recently paid attention to how differently most of you view civil liberties, given that you never experienced them. Your gestalt acquiesance to the police state that you poor sods schooled under and then work for is genuinely shocking to me.

    I'm saying that you have no problems with being prisoners under a warden 'cause you were brought up that way, "for your safety". It is the fault of decades of parents becoming WAAAAAAYY too overprotective and fearful of bogeymen.

    You don't need to be tracked, unless you want to be. You shouldn't be required to be tracked to work for a living. The magic word is "no". Remember the magic word. Teach it to your children in turn.

    Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

    • Re:No big deal, and in the end it will save lives. (Score:4, Informative)

      by HermanAB (661181) on Sunday February 26 2006, @02:43PM (#14804785)
      Turning it off is not necessarily sufficient and removing the battery is inconvenient. So, forward your work cell phone to a private phone and permanently leave the work phone in its charger, inside a locked drawer of your desk.
      • it seems more likely to me that a couple of sixteen year olds will be dating and have given each other permission to locate- then when they break up one tracks down the other and makes a messy scene- either in the public screaming fit variety or the bloody stains everywhere variety. I just don't think that this is something necessary.
        • it seems more likely to me that a couple of sixteen year olds will be dating and have given each other permission to locate- . . . . .

          And what does being 16 years old have to do with it? I know one fully grown woman (30s) who had an abusive B-friend who would have jumped at the chance to be able to track her whereabouts 24/7.

          Thankfully she's now broken up with him, but I figure that he would have had no problem with the idea of tracking her down at work and making a public scene ... just for the fun

          • it wasn't my intent to imply that older people might not abuse it as well- just that an older person would have more options (private investigator, more experience at stalking, more psycho friends etc) and that something this simplistic was more likely to be abused by younger and/or less sophisticated users.
    • I don't think you can turn the bloody things off. Also, have you seen the state of public telephone boxes? That's if you can find one. A mobile phone is *essential these days.
    • Hold on a sec,

      Jim is in a burning car, with a working mobile, yet he never bothered to phone the 999 and get some help? Dumb noobs like him are the kind that troll on slashdot, let him burn!

      Does it work in rural areas? This could be awesome for stuff like people lost in mountains etc

      As for agreeing, have a clause where you agree that person X can override this right. Hell if i fell down a hole and couldn't speak, i wouldn't care if my mum agreed on my behalf to have me found via my mobile.
      • It will work anywhere where there are cell towers to do triangulation on. The only places I've been that don't have mobile signals recently are the London underground and central Oxford, but I'm sure there are others.

    • Re:Works well (Score:4, Insightful)

      by temojen (678985) on Sunday February 26 2006, @03:11PM (#14804902) Journal
      Why not just phone them and ask if they're OK? If they're not OK, all you know is where their phone is ... Lying where they dropped it when they were abducted (oh good, he's at the park), In the car at the accident scene (oh, good, she's just leaving the mall now), In their pocket while they get drunk (oh good, he's at jimmy's).
    • I was going to post at length on this subject, but I'm not. At the risk of being moderated flamebait I have to say it: if you need to track your children you should be asking yourself, very seriously, what this says about you, them and their upbringing. Knowing where they are makes them safer how, exactly?

      One thing; when I was at U, I was attacked by a psychopath with a knife while on college premises. Location services are about making money, and they therefore seek to induce the paranoia that causes peopl

    • Not so. The phone is constantly communicating with the base stations - for the obvious purpose that the network needs to know where it is when someone calls you.

      I've tried a tracking service and it got my location down to about 200 yards. Was quite impressed.

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