[MCSTex]

You can turn the "tracking" feature OFF on my cell phone.
It is the users option to have it on or off.

[VeniVidiVici]

My phone came with a free black helicopter! ;-)

I can also turn the tracking feature off (for those times I want to take the black helicopter)

[wafflehouse]

ah, no. if your cellphone is on, it can be tracked to within a coupla miles probably..

[wafflehouse]

that is, without E911..

[SauronOfMordor]

You can turn the "tracking" feature OFF on my cell phone. It is the users option to have it on or off.

Doesn't matter. For E911 purposes, the feature must ALWAYS be on for emergency and law-enforcement purposes. All that option does, at most, is make the info unavailable to non-law-enforcement.

Also the phone company always knows where your phone is, to the nearest cell tower, even if it's an ancient phone. They have to, in order to know which cell tower to route an incoming call to. And, even on an ancient cell phone, law-enfocement can "ping" the phone, and have it respond. They can thus triangulate on the phone's position (which is how they located Pablo Escobar in Columbia)

[Geritol]

there are stories of the cell company being able to turn on your phone and for police to be able to use it as a remote microphone. I am sure that it is not technically impossible to do this if the phone is powered. I am also sure it is not impossible for the cell company to turn on the gps positioning remotely, if the phone is powered.

What I do not know is if the phones actually support these functions, or which ones do and which ones do not. As mentioned above, the police do not want to give away any of their nifty tricks before an elected official works to make them explicitly illegal, and I can not blame them. Also as mentioned before, there are capabilities and functions technically doable that the phones themselves are not designed to facilitate - yet. And others that they are.

[Fester Chugabrew]

"You can turn the "tracking" feature OFF on my cell phone. It is the users option to have it on or off."

Hehe. The Placebo Switch.

[AFreeBird]

You can turn the "tracking" feature OFF on my cell phone.

I wouldn't truely trust that option unless the phone was off and the battery removed.