<story><title>France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone</title><url>https://gazettengr.com/france-passes-bill-to-allow-police-remotely-activate-phone-camera-microphone-spy-on-people/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>donatj</author><text>United States, couple years ago my friend in his mid-thirties was feeling depressed after his mom died. Came over to hang out, and wasn’t responding to his sisters calls.&lt;p&gt;His sister called in a welfare check on him and suddenly I have three cops knocking at my front door. They ask for him by name, say he isn’t in trouble. I go get him; he asks “how did you know where I was?” and the cops say “we pinged your phone”. What that entails exactly I have no clue.&lt;p&gt;Later I pulled up the video of them arriving on my cameras, they didn’t approach any of my neighbors houses first. It was just right to my front door like they knew exactly where he was. Kinda spooky.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JohnFen</author><text>&amp;gt;  the cops say “we pinged your phone”. What that entails exactly I have no clue.&lt;p&gt;The cell phone infrastructure knows where your phone is. It has to in order for it to operate. The police routinely ask cell phone companies for locations of cell phones. Many (most?) not only won&amp;#x27;t require a warrant, but provide an official portal the police can use to conduct their queries without having to get a phone company employee to do it.</text></comment>
<story><title>France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone</title><url>https://gazettengr.com/france-passes-bill-to-allow-police-remotely-activate-phone-camera-microphone-spy-on-people/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>donatj</author><text>United States, couple years ago my friend in his mid-thirties was feeling depressed after his mom died. Came over to hang out, and wasn’t responding to his sisters calls.&lt;p&gt;His sister called in a welfare check on him and suddenly I have three cops knocking at my front door. They ask for him by name, say he isn’t in trouble. I go get him; he asks “how did you know where I was?” and the cops say “we pinged your phone”. What that entails exactly I have no clue.&lt;p&gt;Later I pulled up the video of them arriving on my cameras, they didn’t approach any of my neighbors houses first. It was just right to my front door like they knew exactly where he was. Kinda spooky.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paxys</author><text>Despite all the technology in the world the majority of police work is still plain old-fashioned knocking on doors and making phone calls. People will always voluntarily give up all the information in the world to be seen as good citizens. In your friend&amp;#x27;s case I&amp;#x27;m willing to bet that they asked the sister for the names of his close friends and acquaintances and yours matched up.</text></comment>