“Women stalked using cell phones” |
| Women stalked using cell phones Posted: 15 Nov 2010 01:57 PM PST CINCINNATI - A man showed up at the YWCA Women's Shelter looking for his victim. The downtown shelter's location is a closely-guarded secret. So how did the abusive husband find his wife? Her tracked her cell phone. "They had a family plan which included GPS," says Theresa Singleton, the Cincinnati YWCA's abuse protection director. "The woman who came to our shelter didn't realize that she could be tracked." AT&T provides its Family Map service to whoever is paying the cell phone bill. Parents can use the service to make sure their children are safely home from school, but one spouse can also use it to track the other. Singleton says "abusers can use these tools to track their location, and possibly harm them." For demonstration purposes, I was able to track my wife for a few days without her permission. AT&T sent texts to her phone to let her know that someone was tracking her. But the messages did not give her the option to approve the tracking. The wireless company also sent two letters to our home. The identical letters fully explained the Family Map service, that someone was tracking us, and how to disable the service. But both letters were addressed only to me, the husband. My wife did not see the letters before I told her about our I-Team investigation. "Women die," warns Singleton. "I mean women die. For those women who do end up in the morgue, they're usually in the process of leaving." In Scottsdale, Arizona a father is accused of shooting his two children before turning the gun on himself. He survived. The kids did not. Andre Leteve's wife Laurie checked the cell phone bill after the family tragedy and discovered her husband had been tracking her before the shootings. Another father, James Harrison, killed his children and himself near Seattle after tracking his wife's cell phone and finding her with another man. At the YWCA in Cincinnati, domestic violence survivors are asked to turn their cell phones off when they arrive. Some shelters even remove the batteries to make sure abusers can't track their victims. Verizon, which offers the similar Family Locator service, provides free cell phones to the YWCA. The pre-paid "hope line" phones can't be tracked by abusers. You can turn off "location based services" in the menu on your phone. But you may not want to turn it off. Sheriff's deputies in Butler Co. were able to recover a stolen car in October because the driver had left her cell phone in the car. Investigators called Sprint, which required the deputies to fax a release from the victim. Once Sprint received the paperwork, operators were able to relay the location of the car as the thieves drove through downtown Cincinnati. Police surrounded the car, and arrested the suspects. The car and the phone were returned to their owner in Liberty Twp. before lunch. Cell phones are also used to find missing children. Police need a warrant or a release. An abusive husband needs only to have his name on the bill. Singleton concludes that "there are lots of benefits. GPS led police officers to the car that was stolen, and in terms of tracking children, keeping children safe. So it is a double-edged sword." Copyright 2010 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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