Can You Background Check A Burner Phone

You've seen and heard well-nigh burner phones in movies and Idiot box shows, but what are they and how are they unlike from normal phones?

If you watch a lot of films or TV shows, you will accept heard virtually burner phones. Jason Bourne used them a lot, and so too did the characters in Breaking Bad and The Wire.

But what is a burner phone and how is it different from a standard phone like an iPhone or an Android phone?

What is A Burner Telephone?

Nearly people – fictional or otherwise – use burner phones because they're private, they cannot exist tracked, and y'all have a level of anonymity that you simply do non get with a traditional smartphone.

With a smartphone like Apple's iPhone or an Android phone, you lot sign in with your electronic mail, well-nigh are purchased via credit cards via carriers or networks, and all of your data is tracked by both the phone'southward manufacturer and your network provider.

Smartphones also have GPS, and then you can track their location. On height of this, they're internet-connected too, so your location is piece of cake to observe if yous employ applications like Facebook and Instagram.

Basically, a smartphone is really piece of cake to runway.

And if you're wanting to become off the grid, or avoid the regime, you practise not want any of this. Instead, y'all want a simple phone that doesn't have an cyberspace connection and can be bought for cash either in a 7/11 or a store like Best Buy.

The thought with a burner phone is that information technology doesn't go out a trail; in that location's no purchase receipt (if you use cash), and the SIM carte and number are effectively untraceable also as it is not tied to your credit card or anything of your personal information.

You can then use the phone to make and receive calls anonymously. In that location will be no way of anybody tracing information technology back to yous. And because burner phones are cheap, if you do arrive a tight spot, yous can ditch the telephone and make tracks.

Why Do People Use Burner Phones?

The main reason anyone would use a burner phone is the same reason by characters use them in shows like The Wire – to evade the authorities. If yous run an illegal business, you lot need to make calls and exist contactable, and this is where a burner phone comes into play.

Drug dealers apply burner phones, not only for business but also to proceed records on all their customers. And when they quit the trade, they tin can and then sell the burner onto another dealer for profit – it is basically a Rolodex of potential clients.

Different an iPhone, a burner telephone is substantially off the grid; even the law would struggle to runway a burner phone. They're sold for next to nothing in 7/11 stores and can exist used and then tending of if the user got themselves compromised.

The ability to use and discard them is what makes them so bonny to criminals, prisoners, and anyone that wants to stay off the grid. The simply downside to a burner telephone is that they're very limited with respect to features.

You cannot run apps on them, nor exercise they accept an internet connectedness. They're basically feature phones, the kind of cellphones that most people used in the 1990s, before the rise of smartphones.

Burner phones do have great battery life, nonetheless – most terminal weeks at a time.

Tin can Burner Phones Exist Tracked?

The primary reason people apply burner phones is anonymity, to stay off the filigree, and to keep them out of reach. But tin can burner phones be tracked? In the movies, it appears they cannot exist traced. But is this the case?

Every bit it turns out, no – a burner phone Tin be traced.

Yes. A burner phone number can be traced. All mobile phones (including prepaid ones) and burner apps get through a cellular carrier or virtual number operator. Your identity can be tracked through call logs, information usage, estimate location, and text messages.
DataOverHaulers

This means that while a burner phone, particularly if you lot purchase one with greenbacks, is tricker to track and trace than a traditional smartphone, it tin still be tracked down by the government.

Although, in society to track the burner telephone, the government would need to find the shop you lot bought it from and then find out what SIM card you were using. At this point, however, the user of the burner phone could simply ditch the telephone and get a new one.

The FBI's Insane ANOM Burner Telephone Sting Operation

Back in 2018, US and Australian feds got together over a few beers to discuss an operation involving burner phones loaded with a tracking app called ANOM to infiltrate drug gangs in the US and Oz.

The burner phones, complete with the fed's ANOM app, were distributed on the black market and were marketed as "the virtually secure burner ever". Needless to say, the need for the telephone was massive.

What the gangs didn't know, however, was that the ANOM app that came installed on the phone was controlled by the FBI, so agents could heed in on calls and rails the movements of gang members.

In total, around 12,000 burner phones were sold during the functioning, reports suggest. And in the space of 12 months, the FBI seized hundreds of tons of cocaine.

"To give you an idea of the magnitude of our penetration, we were able to actually see photographs of hundreds of tons of cocaine that were concealed in shipments of fruit. We were able to come across hundreds of kilos of cocaine that were concealed in canned appurtenances," Calvin Shivers, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in The Hague on Tuesday.

Where Can You Buy Burner Phones?

If yous want to purchase a burner telephone – and you lot want to apply it every bit a proper burner phone – you will need to A) pay cash for information technology, and B) go information technology from a brick and mortar store. The dodgier and less secure the amend. You do not desire to purchase from a store with CCTV.

Almost burner phones retail for anywhere from $x to $50, so they're inexpensive. You lot will accept to buy a SIM card to go with it also. Again, you'll want to use cash and brand certain you buy it from a store that doesn't accept any CCTV cameras.

If y'all want to remain 100% anonymous, you should avoid using a credit carte du jour and/or buying the burner online via places like Amazon.

If you just want a burner phone for emergencies, or to just leave in the car, and so you don't need to carp with any of the above –only pick 1 like this up from Amazon. It'south cheap and it has insane battery life.

If you use a smartphone and you want to stop your Internet service provider and network from tracking you, the best and easiest way to do that is to download and use a VPN – this will secure all your net activity.

I utilise NordVPN; information technology'due south fast, secure, 100% no logs, and it has servers all over the globe, so whatever server yous connect to, you ever have super-fast upload and download speeds. As VPNs go, I think information technology is currently the all-time option on the market place correct now.

BURNER PHONES EXPLAINED