Probably, but iPhones and Android have them for the Five Eyes and anyone else who is willing to pay/push for laws to make it happen. All you do with a phone is pick your poison, do you want China to spy on you, or America, the UK, or some other government or company who then sells it to the highest bidder.
Any cell phone, dumb or smart, is a tracking device. The smarter it is, the better it is as snooping on you. Doesn’t matter how or where the phone’s hardware is made, it’s going to track you without consent. You just need to ask “Am I worried about China or am I worried about another government?” to even “If the backdoor is big enough, can third parties get me too as I walk by on the street?”
yea phones constantly ping something so at least the network operator can map out where it has been with good accuracy if you become person of interest
The network operator will naturally have a log of the nearest cell tower to your phone as you move around and each entry there gives an (almost, but not quite in heavilly built places because line of sight obstructions and signal bounces) circular area within which that phone was at that time (not absolutelly sure about the tower measuring and keeping logs of radiowave power levels, but if it does that circular area can be further improved to something like a torus), and the higher the density of cell towers around the phone (i.e. in cities) the smaller the areas and hence the higher location precision.
Also, at least in the US, it’s possible to get the operator to triangulate the phone’s position using multiple towers to get a much more precise location, which is how law enforcement (and who knows who else) can find people via their phones.
Even the dumbest of mobile phones can be tracked this way.
Probably, but iPhones and Android have them for the Five Eyes and anyone else who is willing to pay/push for laws to make it happen. All you do with a phone is pick your poison, do you want China to spy on you, or America, the UK, or some other government or company who then sells it to the highest bidder.
Any cell phone, dumb or smart, is a tracking device. The smarter it is, the better it is as snooping on you. Doesn’t matter how or where the phone’s hardware is made, it’s going to track you without consent. You just need to ask “Am I worried about China or am I worried about another government?” to even “If the backdoor is big enough, can third parties get me too as I walk by on the street?”
yea phones constantly ping something so at least the network operator can map out where it has been with good accuracy if you become person of interest
The network operator will naturally have a log of the nearest cell tower to your phone as you move around and each entry there gives an (almost, but not quite in heavilly built places because line of sight obstructions and signal bounces) circular area within which that phone was at that time (not absolutelly sure about the tower measuring and keeping logs of radiowave power levels, but if it does that circular area can be further improved to something like a torus), and the higher the density of cell towers around the phone (i.e. in cities) the smaller the areas and hence the higher location precision.
Also, at least in the US, it’s possible to get the operator to triangulate the phone’s position using multiple towers to get a much more precise location, which is how law enforcement (and who knows who else) can find people via their phones.
Even the dumbest of mobile phones can be tracked this way.