euhm, well. 112 programmer here. There are multiple levels. Cell tower triangulation come in automatically from providers. But they are only in tower numbers. They might be wrongly entered by engineers, hence the confirming question about where you are. Second is subscription information, as in registered address. Chances are if called from nearby your address, you are at your address. Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back. This can be turned off, since implementation.
Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
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Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#42Do they really need it? They can likely triangulate you without GPS regardless.
Cell tower triangulation does not provide the same precision as GPS.
And at the end of the day if the location is a hundred meters off... it might still not matter because it's how you frame it with other evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Even the article mentions this.
> I have served on a jury where the prosecution obtained location data from cell towers. Since cell towers are sparse (especially before 5G), the accuracy is in the range of tens to hundreds of metres.
I've also personally witnessed murder cases locally where GPS location put a suspect to "100 meters away". The rest of the evidence still pushed the case forward to a guilty verdict, and the phone evidence was still pretty damning.
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that work?
Phone detects that you call emergency service and enables gps. Last time I called 911 (well, it's 112 in my country) my android phone asked if I want to provide gps coordinates. I did, but they still asked for address, so probably this is not integrated/used everywhere.
They may also ask simply to confirm the location is correct and to help responders more quickly locate you in the vicinity.
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#44From the comments, it appears many are not aware that even the US government buys location data of users from data brokers - How the Federal Government Buys Our Cell Phone Location Data - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... ... Apparently, US cell phone companies are one of the providers of this data - US cell carriers are selling access to your real-time phone location data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 ...
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#45What if I told you that carriers can also activate your phone's microphone without your knowledge and listen in on your surroundings?
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#46What you need iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, or iPad Pro (M5) Wi-Fi + Cellular iOS 26.3 or later A supported carrier: Germany: Telekom United Kingdom: EE, BT United States: Boost Mobile Thailand: AIS, True Turn limit precise location on or off Open Settings, then tap Cellular. Tap Cellular Data Options. If you have more than one phone number under SIMs, tap one of your lines. Scroll down to Limit Precise Location. Turn the…
Apple doc: https://support.apple.com/en-us/126101
Only Boost Mobile in the U.S. Weird. About 7.5M subscribers. Maybe it requires 5G? Wonder if it works when roaming?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_Mobile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operato...
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#47This community should be talking about meshcore more imho. It's a peer to peer network based on Lora. It really only allows text messaging but with up to 20km hops between peers coverage is surprisingly huge. Incredibly useful if you go hiking with friends (if you get split up you can still stay in touch). See https://eastmesh.au/ and scroll down to the map for the Victoria and now more widely Australia network that'…
Great for small networks. Once bad actors find it, it will be attacked. See gnutella as the case study on unsupervised peer to peer networks
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#48This community should be talking about meshcore more imho. It's a peer to peer network based on Lora. It really only allows text messaging but with up to 20km hops between peers coverage is surprisingly huge. Incredibly useful if you go hiking with friends (if you get split up you can still stay in touch). See https://eastmesh.au/ and scroll down to the map for the Victoria and now more widely Australia network that'…
It is surprising that these networks aren't more popular. There are still many places and situation where connectivity isn't available
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#49Phones haven't always had GPS information and they could still be tracked, if you connect to enough towers they can triangulate your location. Cell towers have been able to do this based on your signal strength for a very long time and you cant turn it off. You don't even have to have a SIM card, if the cell radio is on it pings towers period, this is why a phone even without service can dial 911 and it will work. The IMEI of your phone is unique and cell towers can track it, the government has used this and there is no way to disable it. Its not as accurate as GPS but it can be good enough to figure out a route you take and general location
https://www.rfwireless-world.com/terminology/cellular-tower-...
Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
#50What you need iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, or iPad Pro (M5) Wi-Fi + Cellular iOS 26.3 or later A supported carrier: Germany: Telekom United Kingdom: EE, BT United States: Boost Mobile Thailand: AIS, True Turn limit precise location on or off Open Settings, then tap Cellular. Tap Cellular Data Options. If you have more than one phone number under SIMs, tap one of your lines. Scroll down to Limit Precise Location. Turn the…
Kinda funny that the most secure phone setup in the US is an iPhone Air on Boost Mobile. Who could have predicted that!
It isn’t restricted to Boost Mobile. It is only available on devices with the C1 or C1X modem, though. I assume this is because of specifics with the third party modems that most models in the wild have vs what Apple is doing in-house with their C1(X). If you call emergency services it will still provide precise location.