An experiment completed this week by the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT) has caused people some concerns about the privacy issues related to cell phone tracking. These concerns are also being reflected in court cases that involve the tracking of a suspect’s location through his or her cell phone.

The CCIT experiment is part of a project to test out methods for predicting and monitoring traffic on California’s freeways. Using GPS systems and traffic-monitoring software installed in Nokia phones, the researchers were able to monitor traffic flow. They claim that if the system began to be widely used, all identifying information would be stripped from the phones before location information was transmitted back to Nokia. However, people are concerned that this isn’t accurate and that their specific location could be tracked.

This type of tracking is exactly what’s been done through phones in a handful of court cases where criminal suspects were located by authorities through their phones using GPS and triangulation. A recent U.S. District Court holding has upheld the right of authorities to use wireless information to track suspects.