The use of technologies to track people’s cellphones is pretty back dated, and includes ascertaining of location of a mobile phone, which localization may occur either through GPS or signals between network and the phone.
And recently, there's been some controversy about how the US law enforcement were able to track mobile users, and also access the personal data of US citizens, including data about their precise location by scanning their mobile devices all without a search warrant.
According to reports, the Oregon lawmaker maintains that mobile carriers had failed to fulfill their obligation of keeping subscribers' data from being accessed by third parties.
The report claims the Police use a special service called Securus Technologies, which was originally designed to track inmates' calls, to track citizens, including judges and other members of the state Highway Patrol. While Securus Technologies allow the exploitation of not only AT&T customers, but also T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint users data, and the law enforcement agents do not require any court order or permission.
Securus can find the location of any cellphone in the country within seconds, and through a system employed by marketers get location data from major cellphone carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, according to the report.
Albeit, the tracking of cell phones by law enforcement agencies has become a more prominent legal issue as technology has made the process much easier over the last couple of years.
The tracking service provided by Securus, however reveals a potential flaw in a system that is supposed to protect the private information of millions of cellphone users, and also throws more questions on the boundaries of law enforcement.
It also raises concerns about just how much privacy that's available for customers, or what, if any consent from customer, the wireless carrier requires before they provide third-parties with customer location information and other data.
But, experts maintains that the carriers “are largely free to do what they want with the information they obtain, including location information, as long as it’s unrelated to a phone call. Then, we'd all need to remain skeptical of mobile technologies if we really do care about our privacy!
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