How A Digital Forensic Investigator Finds Kids

By Stephanie Walker


Worried parents will go to any lengths to find their missing children. Whether these kids are very young and presumed kidnapped, or if it is a teenager who may simply be off on a lark, there are modern tools available that help locate them. If the missing individual carries a phone or other device, they can be tracked by a digital forensic investigator.

The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is how these investigators are able to track people down. Even if a phone is disabled or turned off, with a Court-Order, the phone and its history can be obtained. If the parents or loved ones have location sharing turned on, then they have probably already been keeping tabs up to the point that the device is disabled.

The potential of this technology to change the way law enforcement finds people became very clear in the late 1990s when former hackers were being utilized in missing persons cases. These hackers were able to take the phone of the missing individual, once found, and bring up messages or forum conversations, even if the owner had deleted the entire history of the device.

The Nineties was an era where this technology was just being introduced, and most people did not know how much information could be gleaned from their phones. This lack of foresight on the part of a perpetrator was helpful to law enforcement at that time. However, as the potential for data mining a phone to prosecute crime became a mainstream notion, criminals learned how to evade this type of investigation.

Due to the erection of cellular and WiFi towers, as well as the launch of many hundreds of satellites, every Internet interface device can be tracked to a few feet of its location. RFID chips help people to find lost pets, and now they can even be used to find lost toys. The fact is, it is more than just telephones that a kidnapper would need to get rid of in order to prevent being tracked.

Technology has always eroded privacy, and this fact is becoming more and more apparent. While many warn of inherent dangers in this, the fact remains that it can help to find and even save someone who would not have been saved a few decades ago. It is important, however, that we continue to expect law enforcement to obtain Court Orders before they are allowed to access data records of private citizens.

As this technology becomes more and more available to average citizens, a debate has come up on where the line between acceptable monitoring and stalking exists. Parents are encouraged to keep tabs on their children and teens through electronic means. However, when and how couples should be allowed this type of monitoring remains a debated topic.

The argument about electronic spying runs right down the middle between women and men. Women are more eager to know where there partner is, and what they are doing both on and off the Internet. Women are also more willing to be monitored themselves while men seem to wish to keep a window of opportunity open for themselves to get away with infidelity and deceit.




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