All you need is the number and meta data about that number is available without a subpoena. Think 2000 mules. In that movie, the process was reversed — they had people with phones in a location, and they could track #s by location.
So ... if ya got numbers, you can track location EVEN WITHOUT LOCATION SERVICES TURNED ON. All carriers can track tower to tower with various degrees of precision. It’s in the network data.
If you get a subpoena, a treasure trove is available legally.
“All you need is the number and meta data”
Wonder how many million pieces of metadata are pumped into the database per minute.