What your cellular phone can tell the police and how it can be tricked

A short while ago, I blogged about how a cell phone reveals its location, even if no calls are made (see PIPEDA and Canadian Privacy Law: Interesting: How Do Cell Phones Reveal Your Location?). Today, blog*on*nymity - bloggin On the Identity Trail pointed me to an brief posting about the use of cell phone records by law enforcement and how cell phones are being used to create fake alibis. Interesting stuff.

TheFeature :: Phoning For Forensics: What Your Mobile Phone Company Tells The Police:

"It's not new, but these days, one of the first places the police call for evidence in criminal cases is the mobile phone company to find out where the suspect was at the time of the crime.

If you're planning on committing a crime, you might want to leave your phone at home -- or, maybe, give it to someone else for the day. While it's been used before, police increasingly know that one of the first place to go in checking up on criminal suspects is to their mobile phone records. While many are worried about giving up information in exchange for location-based services, the police are making use of phone records in quite detailed ways, whether or not subscribers have agreed to provide information. The operators are somewhat secretive about it, but appear to have teams who handle forensics requests from law enforcement agencies...."