Phone location data supplied to government

Whenarewethere · Guru

Phone location data supplied to government

Corndoggy · Senior Member

Don't think phone data can tell if your closer than 1.5 mts from the person beside you. Even if you had location and gps service turned on. And it would only be any good if you had your phone on you.. Often we pop out but the phone is left sitting on the bench.

-- Edited by Corndoggy on Sunday 5th of April 2020 11:26:02 AM

Tony Bev · Guru

I read, (but did not keep the link)

In Singapore where their master plan, was/is, to isolate those who had been close to anyone who has the virus, instead of isolating everyone

There was an app they had to download to their mobile phones, which showed where the phones are, at any given time

Perhaps something like a (not a techi), reverse GPS signal, or something

spida · Guru

My son, partner and daughter have been using a phone app for a couple of years now. At any time they can see where the others are. Worked well the day the school rang wanting to know why the kid was not at school. Son checked phone and told them she had been there since 8.30 and that they had better sort their roll check systems out :)

Gundog · Guru

All telcos know exactly where you are, an example last Saturday we were approaching a small town South of Proserpine, Bloomsbury when we received a text message from telstra about outrages in the area next week. It's simple as a phone registers on a cell tower, your are telling the Telco of your location, and most likely ACIC and ASIO could monitor your location and activity.

Bicyclecamper · Guru

They don't know where I am, have phone, is in drawer turned off %95 of the time, only use it to go to town on my own, and most times forget to take. I do not like that you can be tracked. I am free and want to stay that way.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Sunday 5th of April 2020 12:00:34 PM

Mike Harding · Guru

Neither civilian GPS nor cell tower triangulation can locate a handset with a resolution of 1.5m.

What they may mean is that they are using some sort of weighted averaging to do a probability curve on what people are doing - all sound a bit iffy to me and if you were going to do this sort of thing you'd want data from Telstra and Optus for any meaningful results.

Nevertheless the current level of government oversight and control is worrying... although most Aussies will probably say "She'll be right mate"... until she isn't that is....

Mike Harding · Guru

Bicyclecamper wrote:
They don't know where I am, have phone, is in drawer turned off %95 of the time, only use it to go to town on my own, and most times forget to take. I do not like that you can be tracked. I am free and want to stay that way.

When you go to town do you always pay in cash for everything?

Bookleaf · Veteran Member

Don't think they are checking to see if you are 1.5m from someone else but rather checking on those who have agreed/have been told to/ to self isolate for 14 days and are in fact where they promised to be and have not moved from it.
Most people these days have a mobile phone and have it with them like people of the past had a watch. As the phone is always "talking" to the towers to advise it is still active, this can be used to provide/calculate a silent location of the phone. Set a geofence around the location and big brother can immediately know if you leave your house.
(and rightly so in this case)

PeterX · Senior Member

Its about determining if people are staying at their home if under an isolation order.
( 50 m in urban areas , maybe KM s in rural areas. )

About phone tracking, government has had access to this information for years, they are just getting it more frequently, now

Other features of your phone allow tracking, such as the Bluetooth signature
Government does not access to bluetooth information.

or if you use the internet , your IP address ( particularly wifi )

Plain Truth · Guru

If you carry your phone you can be tracked even if it is turned off.

SouthernComfort · Guru

Plain Truth wrote:
If you carry your phone you can be tracked even if it is turned off.

It may be traceable if "location services and GPS are turned off". That's not the same as the phone being turned off.

Aus-Kiwi · Guru

Police have been
Using phones to locate people for years !! Itll be more for 14 day isolation . Like you would take the phone with you .,

yobarr · Guru

SouthernComfort wrote:
Plain Truth wrote:
If you carry your phone you can be tracked even if it is turned off.
It may be traceable if "location services and GPS are turned off". That's not the same as the phone being turned off.

Recently read that the only way to prevent your phone/SIM being tracked is to actually remove the battery? Perhaps someone who actually knows about this stuff could comment? Cheers

Mike Harding · Guru

Some handsets will "wake-up" when switched off, there are a number of reasons they may do this: time correction, firmware update, to check which networks are available and other things which seemed like a good idea when the software was being written. During this woken state they will almost certainly log on to the network and it is at that point you are visible. Keep in mind the handset may not (almost 100% certain) indicate any sign of activity so you'll never know unless you have a spectrum analyser handy.

Once the network sees your handset it knows:

1 - you are active

2 - you are within Xkm of a particular cell

3 - (with a little more effort) it can triangulate your location to within about 25m to 100m

It is totally irrelevant whether you have GPS/Location Services/whatever turned on or off, the handset can ignore your requirements at its will.

Not all handsets do the wake-up thing but I suspect nowadays that most do. Removing the battery will prevent the little devil doing anything! :)

Trouble is many current handsets do not permit the user to remove the battery as it's built in.

If I *really* didn't want government to know where I was I'd buy a cheap handset (no need to show ID for a handset) and I'd organise a SIM card from overseas (anywhere) with global roaming enabled, let the Oz government try to find me then :)

PS. And don't use a credit or debit card, pay cash for everything and don't use toll roads and you had better know where the number plate recognition cameras are. And of course as they roll out facial recognition software it will become more difficult. George Orwell was correct he just got the date a bit out.

SouthernComfort · Guru

Meanwhile, if we have nothing to hide from it's a non-issue. As others have said, in the current topic Govt. only wants to track for breaches of 14 day isolation orders.

Tony Bev · Guru

I have found the link about Singapore

It appears that if you download an app, (everyone had been asked to download it)

It records, and saves somewhere at HQ, when your phone has been close to another phone, with the app

When a person has been diagnosed positive for Coronavirus, the authorities can quickly find, and isolate all those who were within range, of catching it

Or at least I think that is how it works

Link below

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid19-trace-together-mobile-app-contact-tracing-coronavirus-12560616

Edit to say, after reading the article again, the info is stored on the phone, so if you catch the virus, the authorities can alert, all the people, who had been close to that phone

-- Edited by Tony Bev on Monday 6th of April 2020 12:39:15 PM

Dougwe · Chief one feather

I have no problem really with 'big brother watching. If I am not doing anything wrong then I have nothing to worry about.

That said,

I have been told by the police only Friday just gone I have to change my address even though the one I use is my daughters for contact reasons only. I am full time in the playground and no bricks and mortar. I was coming back from getting some products from supermarket and pulled over for a spot check, asked why I was out and about so told them. He checked my ID and that is when I was told to change even though it is only during the virus time. He saw the shopping on back seat and let me go. He was nice about it at all times. I'm sure he has my details though and if I am seen by him again he will check.

I emailed VIC Roads and was told the same thing. So when next in town doing shopping, probably Wednesday this week I will go to the Vic Roads office and change. When things are all over I will change back. Oh well, that's life, as we know it at the moment.

I changed the address on my Pension Card the other day, thinking Medicare would be changed as well but no, so now I have to go back there and get that sorted. Then I will have to change the GP etc otherwise scrips won't match Medicare.

When things are back to normal, whatever normal is or will be I have to change back.

A pain and inconvenience but a small thing I spose in the bigger picture.

Keep Safe out there everyone.

dogbox · Guru

Mike Harding wrote:

Some handsets will "wake-up" when switched off, there are a number of reasons they may do this: time correction, firmware update, to check which networks are available and other things which seemed like a good idea when the software was being written. During this woken state they will almost certainly log on to the network and it is at that point you are visible. Keep in mind the handset may not (almost 100% certain) indicate any sign of activity so you'll never know unless you have a spectrum analyser handy.
Once the network sees your handset it knows:
1 - you are active
2 - you are within Xkm of a particular cell
3 - (with a little more effort) it can triangulate your location to within about 25m to 100m
It is totally irrelevant whether you have GPS/Location Services/whatever turned on or off, the handset can ignore your requirements at its will.
Not all handsets do the wake-up thing but I suspect nowadays that most do. Removing the battery will prevent the little devil doing anything! :)
Trouble is many current handsets do not permit the user to remove the battery as it's built in.
If I *really* didn't want government to know where I was I'd buy a cheap handset (no need to show ID for a handset) and I'd organise a SIM card from overseas (anywhere) with global roaming enabled, let the Oz government try to find me then :)
PS. And don't use a credit or debit card, pay cash for everything and don't use toll roads and you had better know where the number plate recognition cameras are. And of course as they roll out facial recognition software it will become more difficult. George Orwell was correct he just got the date a bit out.

There was a case a while back that a women went missing with her kids they tracked her car with the cameras on the m1 an worked out roughly were she was, then located her. those camera's were suppose to only track heavy vehicles point to point . i'm sure a lot of progress has been made since then and a lot more cameras
read some where that Moscow has the most security cameras and with facial recognition capacity . all those people who use the aps to make funny faces they are all on record somewhere won't take long to put a name, birthday ,location other personal details to the picture

DeBe · Guru

Point to point cameras are there for vehicles as well as trucks. They recognise unregistered & speeding vehicles. Go past one here in SA too fast or the time to the next camera doesnt match you will get a fine in the mail.

Ger08 · Senior Member

Big brother isnt really watching

However, Ben Grubb at the Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that Vodafone has provided the mobile phone location data of several million Australians in an anonymised and aggregated form to the NSW and federal governments, to allow those governments to ascertain whether people are following social distancing and stay at home directives.

Prior to this, governments had access to some fairly high level information; just this week, Google published information on a state-by-state basis showing a reduction in movement and attendance at certain types of venue (e.g. workplaces, transport hubs, areas of recreation, etc). However, that information is quite broad.

Plain Truth · Guru

SouthernComfort wrote:
Plain Truth wrote:
If you carry your phone you can be tracked even if it is turned off.
It may be traceable if "location services and GPS are turned off". That's not the same as the phone being turned off.

they can track you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYJEtXNx208

Whenarewethere · Guru

dogbox wrote:
There was a case a while back that a women went missing with her kids they tracked her car with the cameras on the m1 an worked out roughly were she was, then located her. those camera's were suppose to only track heavy vehicles point to point . i'm sure a lot of progress has been made since then and a lot more cameras

About a decade ago someone smashed my car window & took the E-tag. I never leave any in the car.

I found this the next morning & straight away reported it to RTA & police.

Some time later I asked for photos for the number plate. The RTA said they didn't have any. They also refused to refund 3 days of use of the E-tag.

So in some cases you get no help & it cost me $300 for a new side window.