Knowing that your cell phone was stolen can be a gut-wrenching experience.  It is your connection to the world and all of a sudden it is ripped from your life, falling into the hands of a complete stranger. Questions have to be racing through your mind at this point.  Can I get it back? Can I keep my data private? Is there a way to get back at the person who stole my cell phone?

Thankfully we live in a world that doesn’t just have jerks who steal mobile phones.  We also have really great people who create applications for cell phones that will keep our personal data safe and track down our stolen phone. A group of these good guys have created an app called Lookout Mobile Security and it is currently free to download on BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile smartphones.  It does more than just use GPS tracking to find a stolen cell phone.  It is a full ledge smartphone security suite that will let your protect the physical phone as well as ensure that the data on it is kept safe as well.

How can I track my stolen cell phone?

Smartphones are an investment. If you buy one without a free upgrade deal or sign-up promotion it can cost hundreds of dollars. The highest end phones are $500-$600 a piece before the promotions that bring it down to (just) $200. No matter what price point you buy at – that is a really expensive phone. Most normal people do not carry something that is as easily lost or stolen as a cell phone. So when it gets stolen you want to find a way to get it back.

GPS tracking provides the solution for a lot of people who want to get their stolen cell phone back. By leveraging the smartphone’s location finding capabilities and the data plan that is almost assuredly included with the service plan for the phone users of the Lookout Mobile Security app will be able to find the location of their cell phone provided that it is on.

Now this brings up one of the three HUGE caveats that need to be understood about tracking a stolen cell phone. The first is that you must have already downloaded the GPS tracking app before the phone is stolen – i.e. the cell phone must still be in your possession when you put the app on it. You cannot download any apps that will let you track your stolen mobile remotely. Sorry, but that is just the way that it is.

The second caveat is that the cell phone must be turned on for the Lookout Mobile Security app or any other stolen phone recovery app to work. The phone needs to be on for several reasons. The first is that it needs to be able to receive the message from the Lookout servers to get the phone to use its GPS chip to determine the cell phone’s location. This is the same with all stolen cell phone recovery programs. Mobile Me, Lookout, et al work this way. The phone must be on to get the message from the app creators to give you the phones position.

The second reason the phone must be on is that it needs to be on to use the cell phone towers and/or GPS chip to figure out where the phone is. A phone that is unable to find its own location is of no use when trying to find out where the stolen device is. It really is that simple.

The third caveat is that the phone must be in cell phone range. This is because in order to track the phone it must be on the network to receive the message from the app to find its location. It must also transmit that location over the network to the app creator so that they can display it to you, the user, on a slick web interface. Without the network you are screwed.

But given that the phone is on, it is in network range, and it you have already downloaded the tracking app just how exact will the location be? It really depends. Sometimes it will be very good – close enough to reliably give you the exact address your phone is at. At other times it will not be that exact at all – just good enough to give you a general idea where the phone might be.

Here is picture take from a GPS tracking app to give you an idea of how exact tracking can be (I have chosen to use the satellite view to protect my privacy a little):

If you have good eyes you will see that the circle around the phone is fairly large. It says it has an accuracy of 1,870 meters – that is over 1 mile. Now the actual picture of my phone is pretty accurate. It is maybe off by several hundred feet.

Sometimes you just won’t know how accurate the location is going to be. There are lots of mitigating factors. For example, my home is of an older, more solid construction than newer homes might be. I have had great difficulty getting a solid GPS fix for my location on several different devices. I may measure my location one day and get one set of coordinates only to measure it again the next day and get coordinates hundreds of feet away from previous measurements. While this is not good for tracking down a lost cell phone with GPS, it is reality.

In addition to the make up of the place where the cell phone has been taken you also have to consider other aspects of location that may come into play. Large surrounding buildings, lots of trees, canyon walls, and other inhospitable terrain features can cause GPS tracking equipment to give inaccurate readings. These can skew the position information just as wildly as the composition of the home.

You should not let these factors prevent you from downloading an app that will help you recover your stolen cell phone. You have no way of knowing who is going to steal it or where they are going to take it. For all you know you could get an almost exact location for the cell phone, like in this picture:

My phone was in the same exact place when I used Lookout to find its location previously (see pic above this one to see the difference). I went from getting a location somewhere within a mile of the place they put my phone to being within 26 feet. That is a very large difference and just goes to show how tricky GPS tracking can be of any device – let alone a cell phone.

But this location is really spot on. I live exactly where the tracking app puts me. Just goes to show you that checking the location more than once is a good idea.

How can I get back my stolen cell phone?

Now that you have figured out your location there are a couple of things that you can do to get your cell phone back. The first and easiest is to call the police. If you were the victim of a mugging or other assault the police will probably be more than happy to use your information to find the criminal. They will want to get the crook off the street, especially since they were willing to be violent over something as simple as a cell phone and they have an eye witness (you!) that seals the case for them. There are several news stories circulating the press that confirm this.

Another thing that you could do to get your cell phone back is confront the thief and get them to give you your cell phone back. Just don’t pull an OJ and do it at gun point. You’ll probably go to prison yourself for being a total idiot. Instead, make it safe an do it in a public place. This also only really works if it is stolen by somebody that you know. Using shame and such really is a great way to get the phone back once you know who stole it.

How can wipe the data on my stolen cell phone?

Let’s say that you have tried to recover your phone but it is still not going to be something that is possible. Say it is taken over the border into drug cartel infested territory and your value your life more than your cell phone. Fine. You still don’t want the thief knowing who your emergency contacts are or seeing all those awesome photos you took last night at the bar. You would like your personal data to be personal.

Applications like Lookout Mobile Security have a feature that lets you wipe your cell phone clean of all personal information. Bad guys can’t steal your contacts information or learn more about your from your cell phone. The wipe feature does cost a monthly subscription fee – but I can imagine only using it for one month, just the month my cell phone was stolen in.

If you can’t get your stolen cell phone back with GPS tracking then at least you can wipe it clean.

How can I mess with the person who stole my cell phone?

One of the really cool things about the Lookout app is that you can make your phone scream. It is a great way to prove that you are the owner of the phone in those public confrontations or to help the police find the phone after they raid the home where you think it is located.

The way it works with the Lookout app is that you can tell the phone to emit a loud noise while vibrating and flashing its lights (if your phone has a camera). This should only be done once since it is designed as a lost cell phone recovery tool and the thief will know that you have the app installed once they turn off the terrible noise.

Stolen Cell Phone GPS Tracking Apps

Here is a list of some of some tracking apps that are designed to help you recover your lost or stolen cell phone:

• Lookout Mobile Security – Free (Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile)
• MobileMe – $99/year (iPhone)
• iHound – $3.99/year (Android, iPhone)
• GadgetTrack – 19.95 (Android, BlackBerry, iPhone)

Obviously free is better.

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If you found this post useful, feel free to share it with your friends so that they don’t have to worry about their cell phone if it gets stolen. Always having a tracking app on hand is a good way to make sure they can retrieve their phone. You can help them by:

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Tagged as: android, Blackberry, cell phone app, cell phone gps, cell phone tracking, gps cell phone, gps cell phone tracking, GPS Tracking, iphone, stolen cell phone