Actually, at first glance, the question does seem redundant. Which mobile phone owner would not like to have the ability to track his mobile phone? Especially if it gets misplaced or stolen! Would mobile phone tracking not be useful to a parent who needs this function to keep track of his children through their mobile phones? What about an employer who has given mobile phones to his employees and is anxious to prevent any kind of misuse of the device? With the capabilities such as GPS tracking can a mobile phone not be a vital tool in helping one find his way in a new place? So should the topic of the usefulness of mobile phone tracking be delved into?

The answer is yes. Like almost everything in life, mobile phone tracking and its usefulness has two sides to the story. There are a huge number of advantages and a few disadvantages too. Knowing about all of them will make it easy for an individual to decide on how much he wants to use mobile phone tracking functionalities. There are, indubitably, some big advantages to using and installing mobile phone tracking software. Here’s looking at a few of them:

Advantages of using mobile phone tracking — yes, it is useful to have the same!
Personal emergencies — an individual could suffer a heart attack or be involved in a car accident. If the mobile phone is in the ‘on’ position then it will transmit signals that can help law enforcement or medical teams to find an individual. In the absence of this kind of GSM phone tracking, the phone can also be compliant with GPS tracking with the proper hardware and software combination.

Keeping the children safe — when children are given mobile phones then tracking becomes one way by which the parent can keep tabs on their whereabouts. For instance, if a child should have reached music class at a certain time, then the parent simply has to configure the tracking software in such a way as to receive an alert at a particular time.

Finding people — leading phone manufacturers offer applications that can help people find other people. For instance, there is a Find My Friends application that can show the location of the phones as dots on a map. This becomes easy to keep track of the people whom you are waiting for.

Disadvantages of mobile phone tracking — a few of them
Privacy violations — a while ago there was a big hue and cry in the media with the allegations that law enforcement agencies in the USA are tracking mobile phones even without the knowledge of the user. In fact, some service providers have been in the news too for stating that they will cooperate with law enforcement agencies in selling details of their subscribers’ locations.

Law enforcement becomes more difficult — on the one hand, law enforcement officials can use the mobile phone tracking feature to help them get a fix on a criminal’s whereabouts but if this has been done without permission then the criminal can go to court alleging privacy violations and even get away with murder, sometimes literally.