5 ways to find out where a person is by phone number

Types of surveillance via phone

Spying on a person by phone can be:

• illegal;
• official.

People who want to use this service should remember that collecting information about a person from closed sources becomes a direct interference in his private life. Such interference is considered a violation of the law and is punishable by penalties of varying severity. How can you spy on a person legally? To do this, it is necessary to obtain his consent. Surveillance without permission is considered illegal. If a person has given permission to collect information or provides it himself (for example, location data), then such surveillance is considered official and does not contradict the law.

Advice: it is recommended to use only legal methods of spying on a subscriber and obtain his consent to this activity in advance in order to avoid legal proceedings in the future.

Content

• Is it possible to find a person by phone number - modern technologies Legal and illegal methods

What information can be tracked

Using surveillance, you can obtain information that is usually stored on a mobile device:

1. contents of the subscriber's call log;
2. the text of the messages along with the exact time and date of receipt;
3. the contents of letters arriving at the user's email account;
4. user's current location.
5. photos from cameras.
6. recording from a voice recorder.

Official surveillance through a mobile operator

All 4 federal cellular operators offer those who wish to purchase a surveillance service for their subscribers. The functionality and capabilities of each operator’s service are somewhat different, so it’s worth talking about each separately.

• Megafon - Megafon provides customers with . Using its networks, the operator determines where a specific person is currently located. "Radar" will find any person with an active mobile device, regardless of the services of which operator he uses. Megafon "Radar" is an official service, so to activate it you will need the permission of the person you plan to monitor. The agreement is concluded once, but it can be easily revoked if desired. During the day, one user has the right to send several requests, but not more than a hundred.
• Beeline - The conditions for connecting to the service in the Beeline company are similar to those of other operators. The object of surveillance must give consent to this, and the operator will be able to determine his location only if he is a network subscriber. You can learn about your location no more than once every five minutes. The accuracy of determining the location of a subscriber depends on its distance from Beeline towers. The error can vary from 250 meters to one kilometer. All these features are provided within the framework, but there is also another, expanded version of this option called “Locator”. works within its network, and Latitude has no boundaries. Surveillance can be established on a subscriber of any operator.
• MTS - To track an MTS subscriber, it is necessary that he be a client of the operator as well as a customer of the service. The customer will be required to register the phone number of the target of surveillance and access to it for about 10 minutes. Subscriber surveillance is carried out by SMS requests or on the company’s website.
• Tele2 - Tele2 clients are provided with a similar service called “Geosearch”. The main condition for the correct operation of Geosearch is that both parties to the process must be subscribers of the Tele2 operator. To determine the subscriber’s location, the client needs to connect this service on the company’s website, using a USSD request or the Geosearch mobile application.

Geolocation capabilities

This is determining the location of a person based on the signal from his mobile phone. The search is carried out using a satellite network, LBS (Location Based Service), as well as using signals from operator base stations.

On a note!

The satellite network allows you to determine the location of a person by determining the time it takes for the signal from the phone to reach the satellite. With the help of telephone stations, information is compiled based on the signal strength at nearby antennas.

Some technology limitations for operator stations that can play a decisive role in a difficult life situation:

1. It will not be possible to accurately determine the location of the person. Geolocation can be off by 50 meters or more in large cities. In rural areas everything is much worse. If there is one tower per ten kilometers, then the search range will be exactly that. Therefore, finding a grandmother lost in the forest is a difficult task.
2. A switched off phone cannot be tracked. If a child's battery runs out or he intentionally turns off the power, it will be quite difficult to find him.
3. You can track a person's location only with personal consent. Everything else is punishable by law.
4. A search request can be sent no more often than every 5 minutes.

How can you find out a location using a phone number without a person’s consent?

Cellular operators provide information about a person’s location only with his consent and under certain conditions. Federal companies operate in accordance with official legislation. But some citizens neglect these rules and try to get information in roundabout ways. Realizing that they will not get the person’s consent, they install mobile applications without the user’s knowledge. Applications provide the necessary information, but without the user's consent, their work is illegal. It is not recommended to use this tracking option in this format.

Contact the police

This method can only be used if the phone is lost due to theft. When contacting the police, you will need to write a search application, indicating your phone number and IMEI. These are 16 numbers printed on the box of the device or in its Settings. The application will need to be accompanied by a receipt confirming the legal ownership of the phone.

To find the gadget, police officers will contact the mobile operator. He will conduct billing: analytics of calls, messages, subscriber movements and other confidential data. Military institutions and private detectives resort to the same method.

Spyware for Android phones

Based on Android, there are several effective programs with positive reviews for tracking the user. They are easily installed on a mobile device, operate in the background and have no identifying marks. Among the popular options it is worth noting the following:

1. Talklog. The customer of the service receives by e-mail a report on the subscriber's calls, audio recordings of conversations, intercepted SMS, microphone recordings, and the history of visited pages in the browser.
2. Cell Phone Spy. The program works the same way as the previous application, it will determine the subscriber’s geolocation, but it asks for a password upon startup. This is a significant disadvantage that can reduce the effectiveness of the program.
3. TrackView. This phone spy program for the Android platform tracks the location of the smartphone, views the image from the device’s camera, and records the sound of the environment. The program is suitable for people who want to monitor their children.

Radar from Megafon

To make tracking access active, you must first obtain permission for the subject of surveillance from the subscriber, otherwise the Radar will not work. The package includes three options at once: light, regular and plus.

• Radar Lite is a lightweight version, distributed free of charge, something like a trial version. Only one user's location is allowed to be checked. A significant disadvantage is the number of tracking requests, namely 1 time per day.
• Radar is an extensive version, here you can monitor five people at once. There are no restrictions when receiving geodata. Accordingly, this type of service already costs money. A subscription fee of 3 rubles is charged for use. per day.
• Radar plus - similar to the previous version, only a new feature has been added; in addition to viewing visits to places, you can indicate the route of travel. This service will cost 7 rubles. per day. Detection radius from 100 meters to 1 kilometer.

Spying apps for iphone

• StealthGenie. This is an IOS program with a wide selection of tools. The iPhone application is sold in two versions - Gold and Basic. The basic version offers a standard set of functions. The features of the gold version allow you to view photos on your smartphone, emails, notify you when you replace your Sim card, and create backup copies of your data.
• Flexispy. An equally advanced program that includes all spy functions, including Spy Call. The Spy Call function allows you to listen to telephone conversations in real time.

Spying on your phone using OS Android or iOS (Iphone)

How to spy on other people without installing third-party paid applications?
This is possible using the built-in functionality of IOS and Android systems. For example, the necessary information is obtained by the Google Maps program, which is available in any devices based on IOS and Android. Google Maps has added a “Show where I am” feature. In order to monitor a person in this way, you need to activate it on yourself and on his smartphone, and have access to the e-mail of the target of surveillance. In the function menu you need to select the tracking period, contact information, and the object of surveillance. The “chronology” service, available for any mobile device, works in a similar way. To obtain information about a person’s movements for a selected time period, you need to log into his Google account through a browser and go to the “chronology” page.

GPS trackers: An alternative to tracking via phone

GPS tracker is electronic equipment designed to determine the position of objects using satellite navigation systems. The tracker has a receiver that determines the coordinates of an object and an information transmitter. The transmitter operates using GSM technology. Location data is transmitted via the GPRS Internet channel in the form of text messages. The device is also equipped with a battery or removable batteries, an antenna and a memory unit. Modern tracker models are small in size. Now they can be built into bracelets or keychains.

Once the tracker is activated, it connects to satellites using a GPS receiver. Satellites transmit information about a person's location to a mobile device or server, where the data is analyzed.

We track a person’s location through popular instant messengers

The most popular messengers that have the function of determining a person’s geolocation remain Watsapp and Viber.

— How to track geolocation data via viber This function in Viber is provided for exchanging location data with your interlocutor or a group of subscribers in a chat. Viber cannot determine the user's position without his knowledge. This information is provided at will only by the subscriber himself. In the dialog window, to enable the location, you need to activate the arrow symbol next to the send message key. If the user wants to find out the location of the interlocutor, he will need to perform a similar operation on his mobile device.

— How to receive geodata via watsapp Only the subscriber himself can provide geodata in WatsApp, as in Viber. To do this you need:

1. Go to the settings of your smartphone.
2. Open the "Applications" section.
3. Select the WhatsApp application.
4. On the page dedicated to the application, select the “Permissions” section.
5. Allow the app to determine your location.
6. In any WatsApp chat, click on the “paperclip” symbol.
7. Send a location to your interlocutor by selecting a suitable address from the list.

What does the law say? Liability for surveillance without consent

According to Russian legislation, information about a citizen of the country can only be obtained from open sources - pages on social networks, from him personally, photographs, comments. Installing spy applications, hacking accounts, and other methods of obtaining information that is closed to the public is a violation of the law. Reading correspondence without the person's consent is considered a violation of privacy. The person who committed this violation is punishable under Article 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Hacking accounts on social networks or electronic mailboxes is considered illegal access to computer data and is punishable under Article 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Installing spyware is considered to be distributing malware. The punishment for this violation is prescribed in Article 273 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Establishing control over a particular person in some situations is vital. Especially when it comes to young children or elderly parents. But obtaining hidden information in Russia is strictly punishable by law. It is strongly recommended to carry out such activities only after obtaining the personal consent of the control object in paper or electronic form.

See our instructions for setting up devas on YouTube!

Other search methods

Google Maps

This is a built-in Android system application. It allows you to track the location of a subscriber’s movements over a certain period of time - a day, a week, a month. The route is indicated by dots and lines on the line graph and is automatically saved by the system.

Find My Device

Another Google development. Registered users can track listed subscribers and exchange SMS messages with them in the built-in chat. With its help you can find your missing phone. But when geolocation is turned off, the accuracy of the data is significantly reduced.

System function "Find device"

On both iOS and Android devices, you can enable the “Find Device” function in the gadget settings (the name of the function may differ on different models). Internet connection and geolocation enabled are required. You must enable the “Remote Search” option in your phone menu. In order to find a device, you need to go to the “Find Device” website.

On iPhones, the function is connected in a similar way.

To prevent attackers from disabling it, set passwords for the corresponding sections in Settings or check the “Prohibit changes” tab.

Tracking by IMEI

Each gadget is initially assigned an IMEI number (International Mobile Equipment Identifier). When you first connect to a mobile network, this number is automatically recorded in the database. This code can be found: under the battery, in the warranty card, on the original box, by entering a special combination of symbols and numbers on the device.

If you lose your phone/tablet, you can contact law enforcement. They will search for it by imei number. But they will provide information to you only if you have the original documents and box, as well as strong arguments in favor of the need for a search. There are also special programs for tracking a device by IMEI.