Finding the enemy

Should cell phones be used to track suspects?
C4ISR Journal
April 1st, 2009

In the 2007 movie "The Bourne Ultimatum," the CIA's New York anti-terrorism office remotely tracks targets across Europe by monitoring radio-frequency signals emitted by cell phones. With a few taps of a computer keyboard, CIA agents identify calls made in real time, locate the phone and use it to track the caller to a specific hotel room.

That scenario is now technically feasible and could play out in the real world if companies succeed in marketing the technology for homeland security, national defense and law enforcement.

The concept can be traced to the mid- to late-1990s, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission began requiring the American telecommunications industry to equip their networks with a capability to locate emergency 911 calls from wireless phones. Since then, a handful of mobile-location technology companies have emerged to help the carriers satisfy that public-safety mandate, known as Enhanced 911 (E911). Now, those companies are seeking to push the technology into new areas.

Within the past year, several information-technology companies have rolled out wireless location-intelligence systems that they say could help government agencies track terrorists, monitor borders and protect critical infrastructure such as power plants. These new systems combine the underlying E911 mobile-location technology with computer data-mining and data-analysis software capable of tracking the use and location of cell phones and other wireless devices in real time and over extended periods. They could be deployed by the government to create virtual electronic "geofences" along border territories or around buildings, alerting authorities if unauthorized cell phones penetrate into specified secure zones. In addition, they might offer the Pentagon a new tool, helping the military in Iraq and Afghanistan identify cell phones used to detonate improvised explosive devices.

The potential goes far beyond E911. "We can stretch that system by adding more processes and more applications so that not only can you locate people who need help, you can use it to locate the bad guys and potentially prevent crime," said Bhavin Shah, director of marketing and business development for Polaris Wireless, a Silicon Valley technology firm.

Polaris' system relies on software that analyzes the signature of incoming radio signals to pinpoint a caller's location to within about 50 meters - currently an industry standard.

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