Thursday, August 20, 2026

Don't Tell This Guy About Cell Phone Tracking!

If this guy ever finds out about cell phone tracking, he'll need to cover his umbrella with tinfoil. I'm amazed at the level of paranoia about automated license plate readers, especially Flock cameras, since all they do is trace the location of automobiles. Your cell phone can trace where you are, in a car or not, and GPS is only one way it does this. Nevertheless,

A Wisconsin woman was pulled over at gunpoint twice in one week after Milwaukee Police Department staff failed to remove a vehicle alert from the Flock license plate camera system. TWICE it happened.

Years ago, in the NCIC(National Crime Information Center) files there was a BIG problem that cost the city of Los Angeles millions because- again, short version- they found out that the Police Department, after finding out the description they'd used in the original stolen car/wanted person entry, was not valid, they re-entered the stuff WITH THE SAME INFORMATION. Which led to the poor bastard being pulled out of his car at gunpoint several times. When he filed a case, the judge read that, said "You have no excuse after the first mistake" and awarded the guy a big settlement.Now we have effing Flock cameras being used as if they're part of the LE network, and getting people pulled out of their cars at gunpoint. And, similar to the NCIC problem, if people don't make damn sure information is cleared out when it should be, sooner or later some poor bastard pays the price.

Yes, mistakes get made, and as the case above shows, they were made before Flock cameras, but why is everyone in such a snit? This may come a little closer:

Back in 2013 and 2014 we shared the story of a man returning to Florida was stopped by police in Maryland who asked him for his firearm. When the Floridian asked the Maryland police how they knew he owned a firearm, things got sketchy. {Go Deep} The event kicked off a constitutional discussion.

A few years later in 2015 the Wall Street Journal reported on a national federal database that was using Automatic License Plate Readers (APLRs) to capture and store the travel of millions of Americans {SOURCE}.

Now we fast-forward a decade and that federal database is now being exploited by local police around the nation to keep track of ordinary persons of interest to their community who travel outside their jurisdiction. This is where the Flock Cameras come into the discussion.

The same government interests who dismiss our concerns about privacy are the same govt interests who point out how horrible China and Iran are for monitoring their citizens on CCTV systems.

And now, vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands: Did somone say vigilante?

he first time that “NoMark” tried to knock out a Flock camera feed, he waited an hour for the perfect moment – pacing in and out of bushes that towered over him, a few feet behind a pole holding up the device.

. . . These black cameras, which are hooked up to a rectangular solar panel and typically mounted on a pole, snap photos of passing vehicles and run the pictures against large databases. They have sparked nationwide backlash from pro-privacy critics, who point to public records suggesting that these devices can help law enforcement keep tabs on specific license plates and the people driving these cars. That they can sweep in so many people’s location from an innocent act in a public space – regardless of whether the target is a suspect in a crime, and without a warrant – has led to fears of mass surveillance.

And oh, my, the libertarians! Call the intellectual welterweights at Instapundit! They're in a lather because some Iowa sheriff deputies have been advised not to mention Flock cameras to drivers, but the only sane comment in the thread is:

Did you have an expectation of privacy in public spaces before this? If so, why?

So why aren't the same people smashing their cell phones, or at least warning everyone that their cell phones can track them even when they aren't in their cars?

Many assume that turning off location services on their cell phone will prevent their location from being tracked. However, this is only partially accurate, as there are several other ways that your cell phone can still track your location, even when location services are turned off.

Location tracking is a feature that is essential to the functionality of our cell phones. This feature allows us to use various apps and services, such as maps, ride-sharing apps, and weather services, which require location information to provide accurate and personalized results. The location data is recorded by the phone using GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data.

Cell phones use a combination of GPS data, Wi-Fi data, and cell tower data to track location.

When you turn off location services on your phone, you are disabling the ability of apps on your phone to access your precise location data. This means that apps that rely on GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to provide location-specific services will not be able to access your location. However, the cellular system must know where you are, so while your apps may no longer be able to access your cellular data, it is still being recorded.

. . . CDRs are a type of telecommunications data that provides detailed information about calls made and received on a mobile phone. These records contain a wealth of information, including the time and date of the call, the duration of the call, the number dialed, and the location of the cell tower that was used to transmit the call. CDRs are primarily used for billing and customer service purposes, but they can also be used to track the location of a mobile phone. Over time, this creates a historical record of the phone's location, which can be used to track its movements and determine where it has been at different times.

CDRs are mainly used by law enforcement and private companies, like Envista Forensics, when conducting investigations to determine the historic location of a person's phone or if someone was potentially distracted while driving by texting or talking on the phone.

Another reason the cellular system continuously tracks you is that cell phone providers are required by law to track your phone's location for emergency services. This means that even if you've turned off location services on your device, your phone is still communicating with nearby cell towers, allowing your provider to pinpoint your location in the event of an emergency. While this information is not available to third-party apps or advertisers, it is still collected and stored by the service providers. This means that even if we are not being actively tracked in real-time, our historic location is still being recorded in CDRs.

So why isn't there a much greater public panic over cell phones?

posted by test @ August 20, 2026   0 Comments