Urgent ~ can someone track your iPhone?

Forums › Apple iOS and devices › Urgent ~ can someone track your iPhone?

maclongshanks

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#317571 26-Oct-2024 22:21

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry if this has been covered already somewhere. I've done a few site searches and have looked through the relevant forums but I can't find anything that answers this 🐾🙏🏽

Please feel free to pass on any links if it has been answered :)🌸

I'm asking on behalf of someone. Can another person track the exact or nearby location of your mobile phone, with any degree of accuracy?
If so how can that be done?

They haven't given permission for it to be tracked.

They have an iPhone. I've seen something about people being able to find the location of their own iphone using I think Find My iPhone.
Can another person use that to find the exact or nearby location of someone else's iPhone?

If they are synced to another person's Apple device or account, could they track them through that?

They also have a Gmail account. Is it possible to track their exact or nearby location using that?

We need definite information on this.
If anyone is able to help fairly urgently we'd be very grateful 🐾🙏🏽

Thanks so kindly :)
🐾🐈🐈🐈

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meow
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#3301904 26-Oct-2024 22:25

Please don't start multiple threads, one is enough.

If they have their location shared to anyone in FindMy, using somebody elses account or are on a family plan and are sharing their location then yes, they can track.

Outside of this it is pretty hard to track somebody with an iPhone.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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zocster

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#3301906 26-Oct-2024 22:28

You can read all about it here.

wipash

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#3301907 26-Oct-2024 22:31

Also very possible if the person doing the tracking has access to the tracked person's Apple account.

snj

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#3301909 26-Oct-2024 22:36

Anything with Allow Always for location can also track, but iOS is pretty insistent on reminding the user that it's set up.

I'm assuming this is along the lines of "help someone I know is getting stalked and trying to figure out how?", so a couple of pointers of things to check:

Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Location Services, will show apps that have location permissions and especially Always abilities.
Rouge AirTags should trigger a "device seen following you" alert, but double check Find My and the Items tab, make sure nothing has been added and shared with another person.
Check that in the Network/Battery area of the Settings menu that it says "VPN" and not "VPN & Device Management" (if the latter there may be a MDM profile installed, so you need to work out if that's intended or not (work email for instance would be a valid reason))

There are passive/coarse ways of tracking a device too, things like the Mail app checking accounts will obviously ping the servers regularly, which would mean connecting IP would show in logs (this turned out unintentionally handy when my dad's iPad got stolen from hospital when he was dying, it checked in just before Find My locked it, so was able to give the Police that info in addition to everything else).

rugrat

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#3301921 27-Oct-2024 04:12

Some applics let people know location. I know someone that had someone else turning up at their location.

Turned out the culprit was Snapchat. Few years ago, so might be better security now.

I also put some peoples details in Snapchat (few years ago) and could then see where they were. After that I made sure location sharing was off for Snapchat in Apple’s privacy settings.

skewt

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#3301959 27-Oct-2024 10:27

Plenty of ways,

Check your find my app to make sure it’s not being shared with a “friend” in there

Snapchat can share location

An app like Life360 may have been installed on the device

If worried they have access to the Apple account and are checking from there. Turn on 2FA and change password

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gehenna

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#3301961 27-Oct-2024 10:30

Location Services can be specified per app, and you can see which are enabled or not simply by looking in Settings, and disable what you don't want to use Location from the same place: https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/personal-safety/ips9bf20ad2f/

maclongshanks

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#3302002 27-Oct-2024 13:38

@michaelmurfy

Yeah I wasn't sure how best to post as it's really 3 different questions I'm asking. 2 aren't Apple related.

Would I better to post them separately in the relevant forums?
The info above says if we have a similar problem but a different configuration its better to create a new topic.

gzt

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#3302004 27-Oct-2024 13:41

Google Maps and Apple Maps both provide ability to share location, as many apps do.

maclongshanks

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#3302005 27-Oct-2024 13:43

Thank you so much guys :) :) :)
We really appreciate this 🐾🙏🏽

Does anyone know if the tracking sites or apps that claim to be able to track exact or nearby phone location can do that?
Just from tracking the person's phone number only.

The person won't accept any requests for apps to be installed and won't be giving permission for any tracking.

Can they be tracked in any way through Google, Maps or Google accounts? They have a Google and Gmail account.
And Hotmail.

They don't use any social media at all so have none of those apps.
I think they only have the standard apps that come with an iphone.
I can check but they're not very into using apps. They keep things pretty basic.

@rugrat
That's a bit scary :O
I remember hearing about that 🐾🐾

@skewt
Thank you for that 🐾🙏🏽
We need to find out as many of the ways it can be done as possible.
Are there others that haven't been mentioned here?

Are there any good reliable sites we can find out from, about as many of the ways as we can?

@snj
Thank you so much for that :)🐾🙏🏽

With the Mail app, is that something that can be tracked live or around a certain time, or is it a record you can access a certain time after?

How close to the physical location of the phone does it show?
Does it show the nearest cell tower or an exact or nearby physical location?

If it does show a physical location, does it still do that if the person with the phone is out in nature places away from addresses?

Are you able to let us know the other passive or coarse ways it can be done?
(of if anyone else wants to :))

So sorry to hear about your Dad 😔💔🌸🙏🏽

gzt

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#3302006 27-Oct-2024 13:44

For iPhones with iOS 16 and later Apple provides Safety Check and simple step-by-step instructions to remove location sharing

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/personal-safety/ips16ea6f2fe/1.0/web/1.0

Settings > Privacy & Security > Safety Check

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Oblivian

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#3302009 27-Oct-2024 13:59

This sounds like it has very quickly become

"I know someone with an iPhone. And their number. But not ours or access to find my iPhone. And I want to track them"

Rather than fear of being tracked.

Alarm bells.

To answer recent follow ups. No. You won't be able to. And anyone claiming to do so, is only after your money.

maclongshanks

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#3302016 27-Oct-2024 14:19

And you, have all the vibes and manner of a troll.
They always have to turn up don't they 🙄🙄🙄

You say 'become'. It wasn't that to begin with but it's become that. Makes total sense 🙄

If I can check what apps they have on their phone they must be pretty close to me. No need to stalk them 😱

If someone is trying to help someone with this, I don't know how else we're going to do it without finding out as much about it as we can.
Thank you to the decent human beings here who are happy to help 🐾🙏🏽

tweake

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#3302017 27-Oct-2024 14:21

maclongshanks: And you, have all the vibes and manner of a troll.
There always has to be one doesn't there 🙄🙄🙄

You say 'become'. Like it wasn't that to begin with but it's become that. Makes total sense 🙄

If someone is trying to help someone with this, I don't know how else we're going to do it without finding out as much about it as we can.
Thank you to the decent human beings here who are happy to help 🐾🙏🏽

its actually a pretty common tactic by hackers and crims. they simply ask on forums etc posing as a victim or asking for help. so you have to be wary of such things.

maclongshanks

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#3302020 27-Oct-2024 14:40

@tweake

I can imagine. Being wary is understandable.
Falsely accusing someone saying they are doing it when they have absolutely no clue is another thing altogether.

How do we find out then? I have no idea.
As with many people we both have alot going on in our lives and don't have 50 hours to search for it.
I have Googled a few times and there's so many sites that don't look genuine or I can't tell.

I don't know alot about it either so I don't know if what I find is right or not.
Most sites seem to be for overseas too. I don't know if their info applies here either.

But as with anything, this could all be bs too. How do you know. I have no idea.
I can only hope some people will help 🐾

Is there a way I can show I'm genuine? The person is very close to me. But how do I show that, and without giving away any information about them.
I can get a list of the apps they have on their phone. Don't know if that's really going to show anything though as that could be bs too right.

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