What Is a Phone Tracker?

Learn More About Phone Trackers

The phrase "phone tracker" can be a little vague, which means that you may be unsure over what it means, exactly. What are you actually talking about when you say "phone tracker?"

Internet Connection

To track a phone using its current connection to the internet, you generally have to have permission to do so. Such capabilities make it very easy and very accurate to track the phone. But of course, you might run into privacy issues if the person who actually owns the phone doesn't know about it.

If you're trying to track your child's phone or a spouse who wants to share the location with you, this is pretty easy. There are plenty of phone tracker apps available in the various app stores that offer you the ability to track another person's phone, usually by having each persona create an account and adding everyone to a single group, all of whom can see each other's phone locations.

GPS

Some phone trackers utilize GPS to help you find a phone. Generally, these are intended for your own benefit --- you might want to find your phone if it's lost or stolen. If you've ever tried to find your phone without this sort of technology, you'll be amazed at how much it can help if you're able to use it correctly. GPS trackers can pin down a phone's actual location, or the last location where it had an active signal.

As with other phone tracker apps, if you intend to use this kind of app on someone else's phone, the biggest issue here is privacy. Although it's possible at times for you to track a phone using GPS location without any privacy issues, some particularly safety-minded individuals might turn off GPS location whenever they're not using it.

Phone Records

Say you want to track a person's phone in a broader sense. As in, you don't need the phone's up-to-the-second movements, but would like to know more about the person who owns that phone. In that case, you just have to perform a reverse phone lookup with PeopleFinders. Starting with just a phone number, you may be able to access a wealth of related public records and other public information.

Your phone records could include such important information as who owns the phone number, the carrier the phone number operates through, other contact information for that person, and even other information you might not expect, like the owner's full name and home address. You may be able to find all that information through a simple reverse phone search.

Is a Phone Tracker Good or Bad?

In a broad sense, you might find it confusing as to whether a phone tracker is good or bad. That's because whether a phone tracker is good or bad is based on the user's intention, not on the phone tracker itself.

Finding Your Own Phone

Some people use GPS tracking options to find their own lost phones. Apple even has Find My iPhone built-in --- if you lose your phone or someone steals it, you can use Find My iPhone to determine where it is or the location it was last active. Phones are expensive, and probably have a lot of your personal information on it, so this is a great option for making sure that that phone gets back to where--and who--it belongs.

With this, you get to choose exactly when and where you use it. You can also use Find My iPhone and similar programs for Android devices to connect your entire household and track everyone's phone at once. You might use this for social reasons, to keep an eye on your kids, or just if you all know you're prone to losing important things like phones.

Finding Someone Else's Phone

This is where things get dicey. Whose phone can you track without permission? Not many. While you might be legally able to use some apps for some phone numbers, your ethical and legal permissions might run out depending on who you use these capabilities for and how.

If a phone doesn't belong to you, it's usually illegal for you to install tracking software on the phone. For example, you probably can't install software on your spouse's work phone or your boyfriend's or girlfriend's phone. But it becomes a little less cut and dried when it comes to a spouse's personal phone, a child's phone, or another phone to which you might have more claim.

Someone Else Tracking Your Phone

When you start thinking about this concept, it may be easier to understand why tracking phones without permission is so disconcerting to many people. What if your girlfriend were trying to track you through your phone? Would you think it was okay just because she was worried you might be cheating on her? When you look at it through this lens, it tends to become less certain.

One thing you can be certain about is that if it's a scammer or hacker, you definitely don't want that person tracking your movements. Every so often, you might want to check your privacy settings and see what apps currently use your phone movements. Make any changes that you need, and continue to check those settings on a regular basis.

How Can I Make Sure I'm Using a Phone Tracker Responsibly?

If so many people worry about the ethical and legal ramifications of using a phone tracker, you might wonder if it's even possible to use one responsibly. Here are a few ways that you can be relatively sure you're being above board:

Talk to the Person You're Tracking

If you're genuinely just trying to track someone for safety's sake, consider talking to the person in question. That person might understand and willingly agree to let you track the phone, or might come up with alternative options that you can use together. That might include using the built-in tracking options or just agreeing to text each other at certain times, like when an individual gets to and leaves a destination.

Keep an Eye on Your Own Safety Information

Although you might be the one interested in tracking another person, it's also possible that someone else could be tracking you without your knowledge. That's why you should keep an eye on your own information. That includes the privacy and location sharing services on your phone, but also information across all other channels.

When you want to make sure your personal data stays personal, you can check it out by performing a people search on yourself at PeopleFinders. Is the information that's showing correct? Is the data you're seeing supposed to be viewable as part of the public record? If you see something that is incorrect or shouldn't be there, you can determine if you're information has been compromised, and maybe even where it was compromised. Check yourself regularly, as public records and other information are updated all the time.

Try Other Records Searches

Instead of tracking someone's information to find information about the person, why not use a public search engine like PeopleFinders? It gives you even better options and it's much easier than trying to root through the person's phone information. Public records searches offer a very cohesive view of a person, much more cohesive than you'll find by tracking a phone with GPS.

Whether you need information about someone's criminal records to possible other phone numbers, PeopleFinders has you covered. Our database is at your disposal to try and find things out about those in your life, without ever getting near their phone or their sense of privacy.