Visitors Now: | |
Total Visits: | |
Total Stories: |
Story Views | |
Now: | |
Last Hour: | |
Last 24 Hours: | |
Total: |
THE GIST
Using a website, a person can type in the cellphone number of anyone in the United States and find their precise location in just a few seconds.
Jonathan Kirn/Getty Images
Is it possible to pinpoint your location with nothing more than a cellphone number? Absolutely.
Your smart phone always knows where you are. And thanks to the Life360.com service, powered by technology from a company called Loc-Aid, a parent can locate a child by her phone number or even an elderly parent who has wandered away from home.
Indeed, network location services can save lives, protect children, and enable business services — and they're available to anyone.
NEWS: GPS Shoes, for Alzheimer's Patients and Prostitutes?
Thanks to a free online demo at Loc-Aid.com, you can type in the cellphone number of anyone in the United States and find their precise location in just a few seconds.
Agreements with wireless carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint let Loc-Aid triangulate position using cellular towers and the GPS signal on your phone. In urban areas, the results are more precise than rural areas where there are fewer cell towers.
Locaid adds security measures to keep the site safe: You have to type in your own birthday (to prevent minors from using the service) and the person you are trying to locate must agree to the location search by replying to a text message.
But after validating a phone, Locaid doesn't require the user to be involved. Banks and marketers can search for the location of someone who opts-in to the service at any time.
“App developers can use mobile network location for things.