Using smartphones has made our lives so much easier. Every day, SMS messaging has become more personalized and easier to use as time passes. But, unfortunately, it also means it becomes easier for you to be detected by your location due to owning a mobile device.
There are many security questions about using a smartphone, and lately, many have wondered; can someone track your location from a text? Below we will go over all of the possibilities when being followed through messaging, including how to prevent it in the future.
Can Someone Track Your Location Via Text?
Yes, your location can be tracked by text. iMessage recently had a large exploit, tracking every iPhone user using its feature. However, they claim this has been removed and added new security measures, although it is safer to stick with end-to-end encrypted protocols to ensure your safety.
Other ways people can track you using a text would be using:
- A Fake Link: With data reading malware.
- Apps: With the ability to track you using simply your phone number (EX: https://www.freephonetracer.com/)
- Allowing Location: Location services through your phone make it easier for cookies to track your location.
These can all be easily avoided by simply disabling location services through your phone. Unfortunately, sometimes phone services will insist on using your location, but only if necessary, leave your location on, especially for messaging.
Can Someone Track Your Location From a Text on iPhone?
In the past, someone could easily track you with an iPhone text, although many have found ways around these possible dangerous security problems. It has been nearly impossible for others to find your exact location through iPhone, primarily through text.
To remove tracking on your iMessages or any of your Apple devices, following the steps for deactivating location services is safe.
Here are the steps for disabling this feature:
- Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking.
- The list shows the apps that requested permission to track you. You can turn permission on or off for any app on the list.
- To disable all apps from asking permission to track you, turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track (at the top of the screen).
Can Your Location Be Tracked on Your iPhone (WhatsApp) Without Your Knowledge?
No, nobody on WhatsApp will be notified of your exact location unless you give them access. If you do not share your location, the other person cannot find it. WhatsApp is secured in your location privacy with encrypted messaging.
If you want to be extra protective, don’t allow WhatsApp to access your location by turning off from app settings.
To disable the location, follow the directions below:
- Disable location permissions for WhatsApp in your phone’s Settings > Apps & notifications > Advanced > App permissions > Location > Turn off WhatsApp.
- If you recently opened WhatsApp, go to your phone’s Settings > Apps & notifications > WhatsApp > Permissions > Turn off Location.
How Can Someone Track Your Text Messages?
Tracking a mobile device, as depicted in some movies, are mostly fictional & challenging to conduct. You would need to purchase a bugged cellphone or have a lot of security measures disabled with an active GPS connection feeding into the malware. The malware would also need to constantly send the current coordinates of the phone to the person who intends to receive this info. Such tools are present with the surveillance team & various National Defense & Security departments.
Here are a couple of location tracking methods for a phone to be tracked to an exact location depending upon different essential factors.
Cell Tower Triangulation
The most effective and widely used method by cyber cells or NSPs is using Cell Tower Triangulation to locate a cellphone’s precise location. Although similar to GPS, NSPs use multiple cell towers near the cell phone to track its location.
The location is measured & analyzed by the time delay a signal takes to return to the nearby towers. Then this delay is calculated to get the estimated distance of the phone from different buildings, ultimately giving a precise location of the phone.
GPS
GPS has many alternatives, which are more accurate than cell tower triangulation. These alternatives are GLONASS, Doris, BeiDou/Compass, etc. All these have different defined orbital rotations to provide more accurate data for location-based services. For example, using GPS, a device can be traced to a location of about 3–5 meters.
To do this correctly, though, you would need many other sources of information. These can only be accessed with the cyber division cell or NSP.
IP Address
Using IP addresses is another way of tracing a phone’s exact location, depending on the time of the call or the text. Although just like GPS, you need many key factors added to make an IP address correctly give you the direct location. IP address, though, has a lot to tell by itself, which can call for a lot of concern.
Other Ways Someone Can Track Your Location
There have been many other ways besides text to track your location, including posting on social media, allowing cookies from specific websites without reading their policies, and much more. Ensure you know who you share your information with and if it is safe to do so.
They can become very creative in tracking your information through messages. These messages look like notifications from an official company like a restaurant or delivery service. Typically they include a link to unsubscribe or STOP SENDING.
When clicking the link, you are usually taken to a simple website that logs the IP, which provides some basic location info but not an exact location. However, some sites might ask for permission which is becoming more and more of a passively accepted response than it should be. People click allow all the time, allowing the sender to see more accurate location info if the person clicks the links.
FAQs
Yes, but it takes work for someone to track your location. There are many factors when it comes to monitoring someone’s mobile device; usually, it requires the user to allow location access.
If someone is secretly tracking your phone, you will start to see your phone acting strangely with a lot of crashing, clicking random apps, weird sounds during calls, rising temperature, reduced battery life, and much more.
Yes, typically, government organizations, including the police, can retrace where texts originated from, whether or not they have been deleted. However, there are many ways to encrypt messages to make them untraceable.