The spy who tracked me
Lying about your location on the mobile isn't going to be easy

MONIKA Adlakha
July 18, 2006

Newly-wed Priyanka Sharma gets paranoid every time her husband fails to answer her call.

“When he is busy, he keeps his mobile on the silent mode, but when that lasts long, I really get worried,” says Priyanka. But all the worrisome mothers and wives have hope in the wireless location based service to be launched by the BSNL sometime in August. All that people like Priyanka will have to do is to reach out to their cell phones or Internet to locate another cell phone holder on a map. Now, that’s getting really close in personal life, right?

But, there’s more to this service. You can also trace the nearest hospital, pharmacy, petrol pump, police station or even an eatery, or use it to get traffic details.

“With around 50 million mobile phone users in India, the future of this service seems quite promising,” says Ashwani Vachher, VP (Sales & GM, Asia Pacific) of Telenity — the telecom service provider behind the creation of this service.

It will be launched at a pocketfriendly price, speculated to be at the approximate monthly rental of Rs 50.

But the better news is that you can be tracked only if you want to be. “The moment someone tries to locate you via this service, you will instantly receive an SMS seeking your approval. It will proceed only if you accept it,” adds Vachher.

And in case you don’t want your exact location to be known but can’t decline the approval either, you can still save yourself by changing the settings in the location box.