Are Online Cell Phone Lookups Dangerous?

An article from Fox News poses some frightening questions about just how safe your once hard-to-find cell phone number will be. But the fact is, your number is already available online.

According to the article, the cell phone industry is working toward creating a directory of wireless numbers by the end of the year. That directory would list the some 160 million cell phone numbers that Americans own. But the idea is getting a lot of flak from consumer advocates and privacy experts.

The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association said there would be safeguards and cell phone users would have to opt-in to the registry.

"They have no directory of their own. This is an opportunity to provide them with one if they choose to be listed," said CTIA Spokesman Travis Larson told Fox News.

He also made sure to mention that the list of numbers would not be sold to third parties to limit the ability of telemarketers to use the directory.

Privacy advocates said that is quite a slippery slope. They said that once the database is created, there wouldn't be any safeguards to keep cell phone companies from selling their customer's information.

The reality is, however, that directories used to find someone's cell phone already exist to the public. The directories can provide an almost scary amount of information, far beyond just a mobile phone phone book would. Tools once available only to law enforcement or private investigators have become available to the public.

Privacy advocates don't talk much about these kinds of services since they typically involved a long, tedious process of going to the court house

Unlike the proposed opt-in directory, the cellular lookups search through public records, which were typically only at the local court house. For a small fee the much-disputed cell phone database is already obsolete.

Experts seem to have let this all-but cell phone directory fly under their radar, for better or worse.