cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/37022405

This is a carrier in the USA (T-Mobile).

I did a quick search for the other 2 carriers using the term “[Carrier Name] Family Tracking” and Verizon and AT&T also seems to have it.

And according to https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/t-mobile-familywhere-app, it says:

FamilyWhere uses geolocation data from the T-Mobile network and is not affected by changes to device location settings.

So it appears that its using cell tower triangulation. Turning on Airplane Mode should stop it (assuming there isn’t a separate tracking app on your phone)

Oh Wow, What a wonderful tool for abusive spouses and abusive parents. And telecom companies are making money off of it. 🙃

TLDR: Its a good idea to get your own separate cellular plan.

  • NightShot@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    I share my location with my wife just in case I end up in a ditch dying while riding my motorcycle.

    • dustycups@aussie.zone
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      6 hours ago

      I have very mixed feelings about androids crash detection. The personal privacy is fine but - fucking google.

      • Xanza@lemm.ee
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        1 hour ago

        You supposedly hate Google, yet have an android… The fuck is wrong with you?

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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          3 minutes ago

          There are several major degoogled Android projects, while Linux on phones is nowhere near mature enough for mainstream use yet.

      • NightShot@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Didn’t know there existed a crash detection function. I just share my location to her all the time. She does the same. Yeah I agree but I rather let my wife relax than not knowing. My point is that not all loses of privacy have to be bad.

  • Majestic@lemmy.ml
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    19 hours ago

    This is going to get DV victims killed. At least on phone tracking like iPhone’s family sharing makes it clear it’s happening and often has a way of disabling it when you make your final run for it allowing you to keep your phone.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    This is a useful feature. If you are in an abusive household, then yes you should have as much financial separation as possible. For those that are in a happy and functional family with kids that you want to allow freedom for, this provides a measure of safety if you need it for potential emergency’s or if they aren’t answering the phone or whatever.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      23 hours ago

      then yes you should have as much financial separation as possible.

      Yeah that’s a thing people in abusive households frequently have.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      23 hours ago

      This is a problem even without this. The account owner can get lists of all outbound calls of their victim’s line if they share a plan.

      The fcc requires some remediation if a domestic abuse order is submitted but obviously that’s at the far end of the abuse cycle.

      The issue here can be traced all the way to phone companies pushing the very concept of family plans because it makes churn more difficult.

      An abuser can shut off their victim’s phone line on a whim with convenient online interfaces.

      Phone companies don’t treat their customers will respect because their is no requirement. No one of adult age should be subjected to any of these controls simply because someone else pays.

      The health industry has rules around this. The moment a child hits 18, their claims disappear and the parent loses access to medical records.

      There is absolutely no reason phones should not have the same restrictions but the industry lacks the will and will until the fcc or other three letter agency forces the issue.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    Not a new thing, and I can definitely see good uses for this information. What they should have done is made it so that the one being tracked gets a log and real time notification any time someone is tracking them. This would alleviate some of the toxic spying behavior simply by making it transparent rather than covert.

  • J52@lemmy.nz
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    21 hours ago

    Daylight robbery… Who’s still this mentally deprived to get another subscription based anything?

    • throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      14 hours ago

      If you want to install free tracking tools, you’ll need consent or try to guess the lockscreen password to try to install it covertly.

      With this, its doesn’t require consent, since most families are on the same family plan.

      Only abusers would use this, since a normal person who actually cares about a family member’s safety would just ask them to install a tracking app voluntarily and be transparent about it.

      Its tracking either way, but doing so voluntarily is way less creepy and also free.

      Most modern Android and iOS allows you to share your locations for free via Google and Apple “Find My Phone” networks.

    • Dzso@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I’m sure that the “consent” is part of the terms and conditions when you sign up for a line on a family plan. Not that it’s genuinely informed consent, or that people know what they agreed to, but technically

  • Matt@lemmy.ml
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    23 hours ago

    Find My and Google’s device locator service exist, they’re free and work without a carrier. Ik they’re not that private, but you save money at least and they’re more private than your carrier.

    /s

    • ReakDuck@lemmy.ml
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      20 hours ago

      But you need geolocation. This, at least, can track you scarily accurate. Cannot escape it except you have more money depending on which situation. (Like parents giving it for free to the child, so the only escape is to either have secretly a second phone with own carrier plan or be open and purchase your own carrier plan by gaslighting its needed)

  • ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com
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    1 day ago

    This isn’t new, cell tower triangulation is a fact of the network operation and is part of how your signal gets handed off between towers as you travel. Airplane wouldn’t do anything unless it where to actually disable the sim entirely, and functionally even that doesn’t cut it in the USA given that a device without one can still connect to emergency services via any tower in reach.

    This is just the carrier giving a customer the data that would already exist, for a price, which I thought T-Mo actually used to give for free…

    • corvus@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      The carrier can track a phone without sim card but it’s not the case if you turn on airplane mode. The whole point of airplane mode is to prevent the phone from emitting any signal to avoid interference with critical aircraft instruments. I don’t see any company risking to circumvent such a critical security feature, it would be easily verifiable.

  • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    These are great services. Insane that they charge for them but there are great use cases. Sorry kids, but parents need to know where you are.

      • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        No but my daughter does and knowing her mom and me can track her in the event of an emergency is a big relief for her and us. It lets her have more freedom and confidence then if we didn’t have it

    • corvus@lemmy.ml
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      21 hours ago

      “Good morning daughter, how it was the date last night? great motel uh? ;)”

    • lorty@lemmygrad.ml
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      23 hours ago

      Parents not even 20 years ago had no way of knowing and it wasn’t a problem.

  • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    If we didn’t have this, my kids would have a lot less freedom. Knowing where they are gives me much more peace of mind to let them roam further, and for longer than I would otherwise 🤷‍♂️

    • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      I understand wanting to do this as a parent, but I’m so thankful I grew up without cell phones. I would never track a teenager. I feel like teenagers need space to assert their own autonomy and form an identity apart from their parents. When I think of the best moments I had with friends, it’s almost always something that would have technically gone against my parents’ knowledge and wishes, even though my parents were very good to me overall.

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      My kids don’t even have phones, as they do not need them and they are unhealthy for the young brain’s development.

      I also don’t use location services on my phones. Fuck all that tracking bullshit.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          That’s true but it’s not in the same ballpark as GPS tracking. The phone company knows what county I’m in but probably not what businesses and municipal buildings I enter on foot unlike GPS location services. Bluetooth and Wifi are also disabled when I leave the house to minimize those being used for device tracking.

          It’s just good practice to disable all the unused wireless radios in your pocket computer. Don’t turn them on until you need them on. It saves a lot of battery life too.

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            23 hours ago

            The phone company can get your location down to a few dozen feet depending on the number of 4G (50 to 70 metres) and 5G (10-50 metres) towers around.

          • throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.worksOP
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            1 day ago

            The phone company knows what county I’m in but probably not what businesses and municipal buildings I enter on foot unlike GPS location services.

            They have your approximate location. If you are in a densely populated city, they might not know which specific building or which specific apartment unit, but they’ll have a small circle around the area, and if you are in a suburb, where things are more spaced out, they will know the exact stores you go to.

            If you go to a walmart with huge parking spaces all around it, its obvious you went to a walmart.

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 day ago

        A cheap dumbphone could come in handy at almost any age* (calls, short SMS, especially in emergency situations). Though there is a possibility they wouldn’t want to be seen with that. Kids will bully each other for whatever isn’t a norm.
        Anyway, preferably a simpler one. I used to spend hours each day on Java games. Really, the only thing that stopped me was headaches.

        * Almost any - you don’t want a 3 year old calling 911 for fun

    • comrade_twisty@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      I grew up in a time before cell phones, I had a lot more freedom than your kids will ever experience. Crime rates were much higher back then by the way. I still survived even though my parents rarely knew where I was between 4 and 6 pm, but I was always home in time for dinner.

          • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Several kids from my elementary school disappeared, never to be heard from again. This happened again in middle school, and twice in high school.

            Just because you weren’t paying attention back then or don’t remember now doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. As you said, crime was worse then.

            Basically any time someone says “This didn’t happen back in my day!” the response can be “the dead ones can’t talk about it.”

            • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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              41 minutes ago

              When children are kidnapped, the kidnapper is most often a family member. It happened to a good friend of mine. I don’t see what good cell phone location tracking really does against that, though. A kidnapper can simply take a child’s phone away and toss it.

          • entwine413@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            That’s not how anecdotal evidence works. Just because you aren’t aware of it being different for others doesn’t mean it wasn’t different for others.