Can cell phones be traced ao tracked down location?

Well they can be tracked. Good proof of this was the happenings of the past week here in the UK with the attempted car bombings - in London and Glasgow Airport. They tracked down those that they arrested through the cell phones. In cases like this being able to track them turned out to be a blessing.

Mobile phones work by hopping from one tower's range to another - so as you drive out or the one's range, you hook onto another one's. Each of these towers have a certain range, and the cellular provider can use triangulatiion and calculate the time it takes for the signal to get from the tower to your phone and back to calculate distance from that point. Furthermore every mobile phone has a unique IMEI identity number. There is a large database of these numbers that all service providers subscribe to and it is not possible and illegak to change the phone's IMEI. When a sim card is inserted and phone is switched on, the service provider gets a log of this event with the IMEI. This is how they are able to blacklist phones from networks and trace theft, since they now have the telephone number of the user and the IMEI of the phone. Some service providers also offer a feature that can be activated for a minimal rate per month that allows tracking of a phone to within a few meters. Using this feature a theft was averted last year at CeBit in Hannover when a prototype phone was stolen from Siemens.

Absolutely, and without a mobile tracker installed. Privately, you can have a tracker installed, and with software on your computer, be able to track the cellphone to within (approx) a 25 foot radius. Commercially and otherwise, such as with authorities, they can track a cellphone anywhere on the globe to a 2 foot radius. Even more frightening than that is that your cellphone can be used to eavesdrop on you. I recently watched a news broadcast that explains that the FBI and other government authorities can use the microphone in your cellphone to hear your conversations, even when your cellphone is turned off. The only way to prevent it is to remove the battery.

If you know someone who is good with a p.c's then yes there can also over here in the UK you can by a mobile phone tracker for your childrens phones....