It’s easy to underestimate the impact that a reverse phone lookup can have on an investigation at first glance. Knowing who a phone number is registered to doesn’t really tell you much, right? WRONG! A reverse phone search can set the course of an investigation, revive a cold case, or provide the critical data street address and customer name that exonerates a suspect.
If you have followed the news lately, a major federal indictment was handed down against several data brokers accused of using gray-area tactics to reverse phone numbers and obtain cell phone records. The customer list of these data brokers read like a who’s-who of law enforcement agencies (federal & state), attorneys & court employees. It gave the appearance that the general public is expected to petition the court to subpoena reverse lookup phone information from the telephone companies, while every other investigator involved in making and enforcing the law turned to their favorite P.I. for reverse phone lookups.
More recently, a major database mining company called Intelius announced public reverse phone lookup access to their huge database of cell phone numbers with corresponding name & addresses. The company quickly rescinded this access after considerable negative pressure from privacy advocate groups, but the secret that data mining companies have quietly collected correct and up-to-date name and address information on approximately 90% of current landline telephones, and almost 80% of current cell phone numbers were striking.
Read on for more reverse phone lookup information:
