Cellular Privacy. We all are concerned about it, but what does it really mean, and what can it really be used for. Oh sure, your girlfriend could potentially kill you for having detailed billing and your phone bill laying around. I can hear the shrieks now, but let’s talk about serious data that violates your privacy. Call records, of course are one, but there are others that are much more disturbing.

We have all heard how the government is potentially gathering more and more data on it’s citizens and you all need to realize that it is possible to track an individual’s movements via their cell-phone, even if you can’t pinpoint their exact location.

Tracking is possible because even when your handset is not in use it is communicating with the network in order to maintain signal and enable the routing of calls. When you travel a few miles or more, your handset will communicate with different cell sites as you go, continuously looking for the best signal. With a record of those communications all one must do is analyze the timing of the connection to each cell site and they will have a map of where you have traveled. If the records available for analysis included signal strength information and your model took into account terrain related signal impairments, the tracking could be extremely accurate. This accuracy would be at its peak in urban areas where there are many cell sites and your handset is handing-off between them quite frequently.

We don’t know exactly what information cell-phone companies collect and store, and if that information is being used for surveillance that fact would certainly be classified, but it is a possibility that this is taking place, and that deserves recognition and further investigation. [Source: SpeedBalling]

Yes, we should know exactly what information is retained and stored regarding our usage, but furthermore simple network connectivity data. If they maintain logs of each tower contact, it’s like having a built-in lo-jack.

This information is nothing new. In my further research tonight, I found a 1994 article, 12 years ago, relaying the same information…

Cellphones work by communicating with a network of receivers covering adjacent areas. As you pass from one area to another, the specific “cell” that keeps you connected to the network changes, and your call is “handed off” from one cell to the next. But for you to be able to receive calls, the cell network needs to know exactly which cell you’re in. If your cellular phone is switched on, it’s continually transmitting a signal telling a nearby receiver who you are and that you reside, however temporarily, in its cell.

A cell can cover an area of up to a few square kilometers, so anyone who wanted to locate you would have to look for your needle in a relatively large haystack. That’s not to say that telephone companies– or surveillance agencies like the U.S. National Security Agency or Canada’s Communications Security Establishment– regularly track average citizens via their cellphone emanations. But it is technically possible. [Source: JoeClark.org]