Mike Healan
Jan 12, 2004

Cell Phones Broadcast Your Location

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that new cell phones sold in the United States provide their exact location to 911 emergency operators. This is called the 'E911' feature. This is a sensible requirement which hopefully will save many lives. Unfortunately the FCC did not restrict access to the E911 signal. This has led to abuse of that feature and has allowed for undesired tracking of individuals by way of their telephone.

How Cell Phone Tracking Invades Your Privacy

Companies are being founded whose sole purpose is to track the E911 signal and provide that to others - for a fee. This includes parents tracking children, spouses tracking spouses, care givers tracking disabled relatives, stalkers tracking victims and employers tracking employees. Some of these uses are beneficial; some, clearly, are not and amount to unauthorized surveillance of private individuals.

A future theoretical abuse of the E911 system would be retail businesses tracking nearby potential customers and sending a voice or text message offering a coupon as they approach their store location. The movements of individuals also could be recorded and entered into a profile of that individual.

An Easy and Sensible Solution

There is a simple solution to the obvious privacy problems inherent in the E911 tracking system. The owner of the cell phone should be able to turn off the E911 tracking feature when not speaking with emergency personnel. It is a very simple solution and implementing this would be a gesture of goodwill from Cell Phone makers and would demonstrate their respect for their customers.

Does Your Phone Disable Tracking?

There are a number of cell phones which include the option to disable E911 tracking. Some phones allow it to be disabled entirely. Some phones allow it to be disabled for everyone except emergency operators.

Phones That Allow Owners To Turn Off Tracking

Readers report that the following cell phones allow them to turn off the E911 tracking feature. Be aware that our concern is only with non-emergency personnel misusing the feature. We make no distinction between phones that disable the tracking feature for non-emergency personnel and phones that disable tracking for everyone.

We do not recommend using this as the sole determining factor when selecting a cell phone. However, we would recommend against selecting a cell phone that does not allow the feature to be disabled. Currently we do not have the model number of any phones that do not allow the user to disable tracking.

Not being in this list does not mean that the phone doesn't allow you to disable the feature. It just means no one has reported to me about it one way or the other.

• Audiovox CDM-8500 (made by Hyundai)
• Audiovox CDM-9500 (made by Toshiba)
• Handspring Treo 300 (non emergency tracking off by default)
• Kyocera 7135
• Kyocera 2235, 3225, Slider (SE47), Phantom (KX-414e), and 7135
• Kyocera 2325 ? (Maybe)
• Kyocera 2345
• Kyocera KE433 (aka Virgin Mobile "K7 Rave" phone)
• LG 4400
• LG VX4400B
• LG VX6000
• LG VX3100a
• Motorola 120E
• Motorola i88s
• Motorola T120
• Motorola T720 (The T720 also would include the T720i, T721, T722, T725, T730 and T731)
• Motorola T720c
• Motorola V60
• Motorola V120, not T120 (includes V120t, V120c, V120x, and V120e)
• Nokia 3585 (Nokia 3585i does allow this, as listed, but the earlier 3585 does not include the GPS chip. The Nokia 3585i also includes the 3586i, 3588i, 3589i, and upcoming 3587i)
• Nokia 3650 (maybe yes)
• Samsung A310
• Samsung A460
• Samsung A500
• Samsung A600
• Samsung N400
• Samsung SCH-a530
• Samsung SCH a-670
• Samsung SPH-A620 (or VGA1000)
• Samsung SPH-i700 (from Verizon)
• Samsung SPH-N400
• Samsung VGA1000
• Sanyo 4900
• Sanyo RL2500
• Sanyo SCP-8100
• Sony Ericsson T616 (maybe yes)
• Sony Ericsson T610 (maybe yes)

Several readers mentioned that the phones which came with their Verizon and Sprint PCS plans included the option to disable the tracking.

One reader wrote to say that the Nokia 6340i includes E911 tracking but was unsure whether or not it allowed them to disable it.

If you notice an incorrect listing or wish to let us know whether or not your E911-enabled cell phone allows you to turn off the feature, send us an email.

Previously another page existed at this address displaying a letter written by the author and published by The Savannah Morning News. That page is now located here.