MOBILE PHONES

A service has launched in the UK which allows you to track any mobile phone around the globe and follow its movements from your own computer. A national newspaper ran a feature on it in Feb 2006. It painted a scary picture.

When a mobile number is entered onto a website, a text message is sent to that phone, to ask if the person carrying the phone wishes to be tracked. If consent is given by reply, the company will show the location of the mobile phone on a map or as a map reading, using a Google Maps-based interface. The accuracy is between 50 and 500 metres. When the phone moves, the movement can be monitored online whenever the phone is turned on.

The system can be accessed through either a PC or mobile phone with internet access. It works with mobiles on the Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange networks.

The system is targeting parents who want to keep an eye on their children's movements; businesses wanting to track their workers; lone workers, who feel more secure if someone else knows where they are; and anyone else who has ever lost a mobile phone – giving reassurance that their phone can be located more easily.

But in the article, a freelance writer revealed a sinister side to the service. He signed up – for £35 plus VAT – and he provided his girlfriend's phone number. He lives with her and said he needed her phone for just five minutes to initiate the tracking.

According to his article, the first message read: "[name] has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with 'LOCATE'" He replied from her phone as instructed and another text arrived: "WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you."

He deleted these messages and tracking began.

The company follows an industry Code of Practice for the use of location data. It was pointed out that a breach of the Ofcom-endorsed Code would result in the mobile networks withdrawing their services from them. The Mobile Broadband Group has drawn up a voluntary code of conduct which the networks in the UK ask location providers to stick to.

One of the conditions of the code is that after a phone is registered as a tracking device, reminder texts should be sent to the phone at random intervals. This way, it should be impossible for a malicious tracker to intercept every reminder. The problem is, those random reminders are not required to be sent very frequently.

The Code of Practice states:

"Subsequent to activation, the [location service provider] must send periodic SMS alerts to all locatees to remind them that their mobile phone can be located by other parties. These alerts should be sent at random intervals, not in a set pattern. The suggested text and minimum standard frequency for sending the alerts is set out in Annex D (Annex D is not believed to be available outside the industry)."

If the company is following the code, it is probably doing all that is necessary to comply with the country's privacy laws. But unscrupulous people are taking a risk if they seek to exploit the service. Not every company will follow the code and some may find ways of non-compliance.

The Mobile Broadband Group assessed this risk during the development of the code and consulted obviously with all the experts, and the schedule of random alerts that they came up with was thought to be adequate to protect against the risks. This is a situation to be kept under review as the service is developed.

Our advice to you…

The best advice if you believe that you are being tracked is to change your telephone -"lose it and get another" or you can keep same telephone and change the number by replacing the SIM card in it. Visit your local mobile telephone shop for details - .

This page has been reproduced from different sources on the Internet and may not represent all the views expressed on those pages. This page is not meant to infer that legitimate companies will disregard the code of conduct. This text is not written about any one specific company and is written to help people understand some of the ways people could be tracked without their knowledge.

FIREFOX/NETSCAPE

Click on Tools and then Options and then click on Privacy. Click on the Clear button next to Cache and Saved Form Information.

Deleting your browsing history:

Internet browsers also keep a record of all the web pages you visit. This is known as a 'history'. To delete history for Internet Explorer and Netscape/Firefox hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard, then press the H key (Crtl, Alt and H for Opera). Find any entries that refer to Women’s Aid right click and choose Delete.

General security:

If you do not use a password to log on to your computer, someone else will be able to access your email and track your internet usage. The safest way to find information on the internet would be at a local library, a friend's house, or at work.

All of the above information may not completely hide your tracks. Many browser types have features that display recently visited sites.

EMAIL HINTS

If an abuser sends you threatening or harassing e-mail messages, they may be printed and saved as evidence of this abuse. Any email you have previously sent will be stored in Sent Items.

If you started an email but didn't finish it, it might be in your Drafts folder. If you reply to any email, the original message will probably be in the body of the message - print and delete the email if you don’t want anyone to see your original message.

When you delete an item in any email program (Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird etc) it does not really delete the item - it moves the item to a folder called Deleted Items. You have to delete the items in Deleted Items separately. Right-click on items within the Deleted Items folder to delete individual items.

Many browsers are set up to remember form entries, which could be a problem if you use a search engine to find the site. For example, if someone searches for 'domestic abuse' on a search engine this entry is remembered by the browser. The next time somebody performs a search for a word beginning with the letter 'd' in that search engine, the words 'domestic abuse' will pop up as a suggested entry.

In internet explorer you can get around this by clicking on Tools and selecting:

Internet Option, click on Content, select Auto Complete and finally, Clear forms.

Additionally, make sure that the Use Inline Autocomplete is NOT checked. This function if left on will complete a partial web address while typing a location in the address bar at the top of the browser.

If you are using Internet Explorer, this box can be found on the MS Internet Explorer page. Click on the view icon at the top, select Internet Options, select Advanced tab and about halfway down there is a Use Autocomplete box that can be unchecked.

This information may not completely hide your tracks. Many browser types have features that display recently visited sites. The safest way to find information on the internet would be at a local library, a friend's house or at work.