Tracking a phone number may be helpful in cases such as locating a family member or loved one or checking on the legitimacy of an unknown caller. More importantly, one needs to know how this kind of track, tracking works and the legality attached to it.
Why Track a Phone Number?
The most common scenarios in which tracking a phone number would be useful include
1.Safety and Monitoring
Parents may want to be informed of the whereabouts of a child, particularly at night if they are out late or traveling. Similarly, tracking can let one know that a loved one is safe when traveling late at night.
2.Meeting up
One can facilitate the process of meeting someone, say, when you need to meet them, but you do not know their location.
3.Tracking Unknown Callers
If you get calls from stranger numbers, then you may want to know who they really are. In this case, the solution will lie in tracking.
4.Stopping Harassment
If you are bombarded with nuisance calls, you may want to track the caller to take appropriate action.
It’s important to note, though, that this isn’t like tracking a phone number as one does in movies. Accurate real-time location tracking usually requires sophisticated techniques available to authorities only. You usually need permission from the user if you’re going to track their location; for example, Apple’s Find My Friends requires your friends to first allow their phones to track location.
How to Track an Unknown or Unfamiliar Phone Number
In case you are bombarded with calls from a number that is unknown to you and you would like to know its authenticity, following are a few ways of doing it
1.Google Search
Copy and paste this phone number into Google. Quite often, one can find basic information regarding the number, whether it belongs to some legitimate business or entity.
Discover Is your Smartphone Waterproof?
2.Reverse Phone Lookup Services
Websites like WhoCalledMe trace unknown callers by doing a reverse phone number search. It gives out caller ID information, location, and the operator of the network. It also houses user-generated reports. There is also the WhoCalledMe app known as ‘Wotcha‘ for both Android and iOS for real-time call monitoring.
How to Trace a Phone Number on iPhone
Apple offers this built-in tracking feature through the Find My service on iOS, macOS, and iPadOS devices. Know how to use it here
1.Find My App
Share your location in real-time from their devices so that you can know where your friends and family are through the service. This feature could further turn out quite useful for finding your lost Apple devices.
2.Find My Network
This network lets your Apple devices talk to other iPhones anonymously to attempt to locate your device, even if it’s turned off. It also works with Apple’s AirTag.
Details: See the Apple Find My explainer.
How to Trace a Cell Phone Number in Android
On the Android end, Google offers a tracking service through Find My Device. With the service, you’ll have the ability to track your smartphone, tablet, and laptop connected to your Google account, or even that of a trusted contact.
Find My Device
This reimagined service can track items by communicating anonymously with other devices in its vicinity that have the service turned on a concept like Apple’s offering.
You can also share your location with a friend using Google Maps. They will simply share their location with you for some amount of time, then you will be able to keep each other’s whereabouts in real-time. This can be very helpful for finding each other, mainly when in areas you don’t know.
Now, after learning how the tracking options work and where they are applied, you can efficiently track phone numbers while being sensitive to privacy and legal bounds.