"I want to know is whether your location can be tracked if your location based services are turned off?" - from an attorney who reported on the selling of cell phone location data to bounty hunters. more
Good question. The
answer is yes.
The information the phone companies are selling is gathered from
the phone's administration communications with the cell sites,
"Hi. I'm here. I can accept a call." The signal is picked up from
multiple cell sites and is evaluated to determine which site is
receiving the strongest signal.
Location is determined by
triangulation. While not precise, it can get you into the
neighborhood.
If they were using the phone's GPS-based location services the
location accuracy would be within a few yards. ~Kevin