This is a question I see asked on the internet a lot at places like Yahoo Answers - "can you find out the current location of someone just by entering in their cell phone number?"

In fact there are a few web sites that take advantage of this misconception by asking you to enter a persons cell phone number and then a graphic animated image zooms in from space down to the earth but the whole thing is just a joke.

There definitely are ways to track a cell phone location but there has to be some prep work done first - namely - installing a program to their mobile device first. These programs are called cell phone tracking programs. They are not free but are not very expensive if you know where to look.

Cell phones do have GPS tracking technology already built in.

This is how cell phones can provide turn by turn directions. These tracking programs take advantage of this technology and secretly report the current location of the persons cell phone to the tracking app members area web site which is part of the tracker app software.

There are services or web sites out there where you can enter a persons cell phone number and just from that information alone the service can tell you who owns the cell phone including where they live, family members as well as social and even dating site profiles online. But this type of service can not tell you where a cell phone is right now at the current moment.

The biggest fans and users of these programs are:

1. A spouse or person in relationship concerned their partner is cheating. But installing the tracking software to their phone you can log in to the applications associated web site members area at any time and see their exact location at any time and show you that location very accurately on a map. Since a big part of relationship infidelity is the person lying about where they are and where they have been you can see how these programs would help you detect infidelity.
2. Parents who want to know where their son or daughter is at any time by monitoring kids mobile phone. This ability can be a huge stress reliever to any parent and is a wonderful idea. Imagine the peace of mind of a parent being able to go to a web site at any time and see exactly where their son or daughter is right now.

One thing you need to be clear about is a remote phone spy does not allow you to track a persons location. This GPS tracking ability can only be done by spy applications that get directly installed to the persons cell phone.