inViu OpenCellID

About inViu OpenCellID Android App

AD-FREE

• collects the GPS coordinates of GSM cell towers for the open source project OpenCellID
• sends the collected data automatically or manually to the OpenCellID servers
• supports Wi-Fi data transmission
• available in four languages: German, English, French, and Spanish
• help texts and detailed information on all saved values in all four languages

Not suitable for CDMA devices (e.g. Verizon or Sprint)
Custom ROMs are not tested

inViu OpenCellID collects the GPS positions of mobile base stations for the open source project OpenCellID (www.opencellid.org). The data collected in this way is freely available to all.

The project goal is to gather as many GPS positions of mobile base stations as possible. With this data, mobile phones and other devices without GPS or devices momentarily without GPS reception (e.g. inside buildings) can be tracked free-of-charge.

In addition, cell localisation can often replace GPS tracking or add to it and at the same time reduce the phone's power consumption.
By November 2014 the OpenCellID contributors had already fed in more than 6.5 million different mobile base stations into the database with more than 1.2 billion measurements.
Every day several thousand newly found base stations are added, collected by OpenCellID enthusiasts all over the world.
Whether on holiday or at home, it’s fun discovering new base stations and adding them to help complete the database.

Unwired Labs is absolutely committed to privacy protection:
this ad-free app collects no personal data from the phone. The GPS positions of base stations are saved without linking them to the phone. Although the downside of this is that we can show no scoring lists for active stations, it does ensure that the GPS data remains absolutely anonymous.
So that no mobile charges arise, the collected data can be buffered on the phone and transferred later by Wi-Fi.

If required, the app can be configured to start automatically when the phone is switched on and you don’t have to remember to activate cell collection every time.

For more information: www.opencellid.org and http://wiki.opencellid.org

Required permissions

Precise location (GPS):
provides access to GPS receivers

Memory:
required to buffer the data on the phone if mobile transfer to the OpenCellID servers is not desirable

Network communications:
required to transmit the collected data to the OpenCellID servers

Deactivate sleep mode:
if this function is activated the screen remains permanently on, showing how the database fills up with data.
Disadvantage: the phone battery will run down faster with the screen permanently on.

Automatic launch:
the app starts automatically when the phone is switched on (can be deactivated)

Calls (read phone status and identity):
required to read the cell data of the current GSM cell

Keywords
OpenCellID, GSM, GPS, cell tower, GSM net, base station, CellId, Net provider, Mobile Network Code, MNC, Mobile Country Code, MCC, LAC, Location Area Code, GSM base station, signal ratio, GPS, Latitude, Longitude, cell, operator, Opensource, localisation, cell locating, phone locating