#CAN YOU SHUT OFF FIND MY IPHONE ONLINE HOW TO#
Is that an indication that smartphones are not really “off” even after the phone shuts down? How to locate a lost cell phone that is turned off?Īs we mentioned above, the definition of “OFF” matters a lot here. An upcoming smartphone from Lenovo, dubbed the Lenovo Z5, promises half an hour of voice calls even after the battery reaches 0%. Now with smartphones getting unibody designs and non-removable backs, removing the battery is nearly out of the question, so yes, your smartphone can be tracked even if it’s switched off if it’s infected with trojans. Unless the battery is removed, some phones can still be tracked. That’s where the definition of “off” comes into the picture. They would have a baseband processor power up every ten minutes or so to retrieve SMS messages, but not phone calls. Some of the older feature phones may not actually turn off, even if they appear to be powered down. It helped identify “ thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq,” according to a special operation officer interviewed by Post. As per the report, NSA has been using this technique, dubbed “The Find”, ever since September 2004. GPS location services will be of no help as they consistently need cellular and/or internet access to gather the location details.Īccording to a report from Washington Post, NSA is capable of tracking cell phones even when they are turned off. When you turn off your phone, it will stop communicating with nearby cell towers and can be traced only to the location it was in when it was powered down. Of course, in an ideal situation, you would have installed one of those Android tracking apps or iPhone tracking apps, but most people realize only AFTER losing the phone. But tracking a turned-off phone is considered impossible, and rightly so.
Location-based services are aplenty in this smartphone era, and mobile phone tracking has become a child’s play these days.