Almost 300 people are missing-and so apparently are their phones. It sounds like the smugglers stole Segen’s phone and probably other people’s as well. But maybe some managed to hang onto their handsets. Tracking any of one of those phones — including the stolen ones — would provide useful information. But how to do that?

It seems there’s been a huge rise in smartphone ownership in Africa and the Middle East, with Android phones dominating the cheaper end of the market. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAE25737515 I’m not an expert, but it seems every Android phone comes with a Google account and a Gmail address. And if you can get into the Google account you can load the software remotely and have the phone send its location to the associated Gmail account. At least that’s the claim. Here’s the app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lookout.labs.planb&hl=en

If someone has the right handset and used the Gmail account at some point on a shared computer that’s still available, then it should be relatively easy to do this.

Notes of caution: activating the phone might make it ring or sound an alert. If the refugees are being held against their will, that could be dangerous. And if the phone has been stolen, the app might alert the new owner that the phone had been tracked.

Could someone with a good knowlege of Android phones maybe check into this?