Sorry for the Cut & Paste, but I think this will be of interest. It's worth watching this story.

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13832649_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-HOW-YOUR-MOBILE-COULD-BE-SPYING-ON-YOU-name_page.html


THE MIRROR

HOW YOUR MOBILE COULD BE SPYING ON YOU
Jan 19 2004

EXCLUSIVE
By Jonathan Margolis


IT'S the kind of thing that only happens in films... The hero, desperately searching for a terrorist or kidnap victim, taps their name into a computer.

A map comes up on the screen, pinpointing the precise location of their target. The good guys move in, the hunt is over.

Great for movie spooks, but only a scriptwriter's dream? In fact, the technology has arrived that allows anyone to track someone down without them having a clue they are under surveillance.

It has crept in almost unnoticed - and at the centre of this new Big Brother technology-for-all is nothing more sophisticated than our own mobile phones.

A clutch of brand new and perfectly legal internet-based services have just been launched that cost as little as 30p to use, and take less than five seconds to zero in to within 50 metres of where a person is.

A simple text message or phone call to an operator from a suspicious spouse or boss can send one of the new DIY spying services off to track a person down. Another call or a visit to a special website will then tell you where they are.

The technology is improving, too. A new, satellite-assisted system that will be able to narrow down the search to just five metres is expected within a year.

The companies offering phone tracking - or location services - are quick to point out that they have strict safeguards against abuse. When a phone is signed on for tracking, it is sent a text message and before it can be tracked, the phone has to send reply giving consent.

But there is nothing to prevent a suspicious spouse "borrowing" the target phone for the few seconds it takes to set it up.

In a Daily Mirror test with leading operator Followus.co.uk, the signing-up procedure took just 30 seconds.

The "target" phone is also supposed to be sent regular text messages to alert the owner that it is being tracked. But three phones we tracked for eight days on Followus were never sent these messages.

THE only sure way to ensure you aren't tracked is to turn the phone off - but even that is not infallible.

Switching your phone off for three hours at the local golf club, for instance, will still give your boss a pretty good idea of what you've been up to because the tracking companies will have logged its last location.

The technology has enraged privacy campaigners.

Barry Hugill of the civil rights group Liberty branded location services as "the greatest ever blow to personal privacy".

Liberty has called a summit meeting with the big phone operators - Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and O2 - to discuss its worries about abuses of phone tracking.

The actual tracking technology has always been there - it's how mobiles work, transmitting from mast to mast - but the operators are now allowed under an EU r egulation passed last summer to sell location data to specialist tracking providers.

Trade union leaders, MPs and even relationship experts are deeply concerned about the implications of this change in the law.

Labour MP Derek Wyatt, vice chairman of the Parliamentary mobile phones watchdog, condemned the new services as "Outrageous. It's the gravest possible infringement of civil liberty."

Labour's Vera Baird, an MP and a top criminal barrister with a special interest in civil liberties, said the new system was "sinister and something that select committees ought to be looking at." Children's charities fear that perverts could easily trick children into giving their consent to be tracked, and conceal their identities by using stolen credit cards.

Denise Knowles of Relate pointed out the damage jealous partners and ex-partners could wreak with tracking. "It is open to abuse. I think it could increase the hideous crime of stalking."

Some MPs admit that they were uneasy about location services, but are wary of saying so in public for fear of seeming to support the rights of cheating spouses and employees.

"There's no doubt it's as if every person in the country has suddenly woken up wearing an electronic tag like a convicted criminal," said one MP.

"You have to take the line that employers have the right to expect an honest day's work, and that husbands and wives shouldn't cheat on one another. But, yes, it will sow mistrust and suspicion into the very fabric of our society."

The phone tracking operators are proving ingenious at offering variations on the basic service. The system sold by high street retailer Carphone Warehouse will automatically send alerts when a phone is taken outside a specific area.

This is offered to parents worried about children wandering off, but a wife could equally set an alert to go off if her husband was in the area she suspected he was seeing a girlfriend.

Another cause for huge worry is that hackers will be able easily to override the security procedures of the tracking companies. Liberty's Barry Hugill says students in Glasgow hacked into the phone tracking system in just 20 minutes.

The potential is there for a hacker to break in, enter any mobile number and track it without anyone's knowledge. The mobile phone industry is keen to point out that there are huge benefits to phone tracking. Parents can use it be reassured their children are safely where they should be. Teenagers whose parents track their phones say it's less embarrassing than having your parents call you all the time.

People looking for their nearest plumber or companies seeking their servicemen could find phone tracking a boon. But it is in the areas of infidelity that things are going to change most.

And speaking from personal experience as a serial adulterer, former Tory politician Steven Norris said: "Now, if you deliberately leave your mobile at home, a spouse is now going to demand why."

Suddenly, there are no hiding places ...

 mirrorfeatures@mgn.co.uk

service like www.followus.co.uk or www. verilocation.co.uk. It takes less than a minute and requires only a credit card.

Register the phone you want to track, which is sent a text message. The targeted phone must reply.

The phone becomes an "electronic tag" - constantly sending a stream of bleeps to its nearest mast - even when you are not making a call. In order to receive calls, mobiles constantly send signals to masts.

To locate a phone you are tracking, you log on to the website or phone a special operator and give the number of the mobile you are tracking.

In a few seconds, the phone company will electronically identify the mast nearest to the target phone. Computers then match up mast's code to a map, and in a few seconds, you get its location, accurate to within 50 metres. With satellite-assisted technology, the accuracy will be reduced to five metres, close enough to provide a street and house number.

Occasionally - there is no government regulation on how often, but once a month is typical - the target phone will get a text alert telling the owner that it is being tracked.