If Someone Steals An Iphone 5 Can It Be Tracked By Carrier / Police Or Other

Can a brand new sealed iPhone 6 that has been stolen be tracked after the thief activates it?

There is no chance that a brand-new, never turned on, sealed iPhone or Apple device of any kind to be tracked. The phone has no data on it, it doesn’t have an Apple ID associated with it. It hasn’t been activated with the carrier, etc. The best thing that can happen if the local law-enforcement places a national-hotsheet on the phone just in case if it is pawned or sold to a pawn shop, unfortunately.

Can my IMEI number be used to track my stolen iPhone?

Maybe. It depends on a few factors. But for sure it is best if you have a copy of the IMEI. The purpose of the IMEI is to be a unique identifier for your mobile device. It literally means International Mobile Equipment Identity hard-coded on each mobile device.There are websites that offer searching for your IMEI. For example: trackimei (I cannot vouch on how good these websites are). Many of these services are premised on your phone is active and communicating with some cellphone tower. Just because you have your IMEI does not necessarily mean you can find it - because the iphone itself may be turned off and its GPS locator turned off too.If you ask help from your service provider, usually they have more means from their operational support systems to find at least where the last location your iphone was detected. Also, if your phone was taken by a thief, it is probably not safe to confront a thief (or thieves) by yourself. Your well-being is worth way more than the cost of the mobile device.Other notes:The IMEI is not the most effective way to locate and iPhone. Enable the "Find My iPhone" feature for live GPS tracking, alerts and remote wipe options. Hopefully you did this, then you can ask help from the Apple store or a friend who has an IOS device (iphone or iPad or mac as long as it has the “Find My iPhone” app)If your iPhone is used for work, your company may have linked it to a Microsoft ActiveSync account. Your tech administrator might be able to find your iPhone's IMEI in the Exchange Administration Center.

Is it true that police can still track your phone even if you throw your SIM card?

Lots of answers discussing IMEI and whatnot, but that’s more or less irrelevant, except that the phone company’s database will tell which IMEI has been accompanied by your SIM.Anyhow - police won’t be doing any tracking. They don’t have access nor the equipment - they’ll be visiting mobile operator’s NOC to get the telephone company’s help.What happens, when you turn your phone on is that it’ll try and connect to the nearest available networks, SIM or no SIM. At this point IMEI gets queried, but it is irrelevant, unless it happens to be on a block list (i.e. reported stolen) and even then you’d be able to call emergency numbers.Only after that the SIM comes into play, when the network inquires your phone which operator’s services you should be rendered, if any.No SIM, no services - except, as others have pointed out, emergency calling and few others like that.Including your mobile’s location within the cell network grid - most of the time you’ll be in range of 2..4 cell towers, and based on the signal strength between them you’ll be relatively easy to locate with ballpark accuracy.GPS, Galileo, GLONASS et al won’t come into play, as they’re not being sent into the GSM (2..4.5g or whatever) network at all.Someone mentioned NFC, which is again, irrelevant, because of the key word Near Field Communications. NFC is entirely useless for any kind of tracking, as its range is 0..15cm at most, and most often in the ballpark of 5cm or less.Wifi, on the other hand… well, it could be useful, but that depends on various factors.First is that Wifi as such is not very useful, as in order to be able to track anything through wifi, you’d need access to the wifi service… but indirectly, if apps on your phone happens to be logging in on some more widely used service, say email or map service, then it’s possible that it’ll announce your location - to that service.If the police have tapped into your accounts on those services, you’re toast. If not, nothing will happen, because they don’t know you’re logged in, so…IMEI is not some magic tool; it’s an identifying code that gets used in a very narrow scope between GSM system’s databases and the phone itself.It can be used, I’m not saying that, but if the police go through the trouble of tracking you down, IMEI or a single mobile phone are among your *least* worries.

Can I still track my iPhone even if the SIM card is taken out?

If the phone is "Offline" it usually either means that either the phone is off, the battery is dead, it's in airplane mode OR it isn't connected to wifi or using cellular data. You should be able to track it if the person starts using your data or a wifi network. If they totally reset it though, you might not be able to track it.EDIT: BUT here's good news! According to this support article on Apple's website, Activation Lock is turned on by default when you turn on Find My iPhone (which you are obviously using). Activation Lock asks you for the Apple ID and password before you can reset the device, sign out of iCloud, or turn off Find my iPhone. So as long as you didn't turn off Activation Lock, the person can't reset your device. (You probably didn't, it's one of those hidden settings that are hard to find anyway.) If you login to iCloud with your Apple ID and password, you can use this page to see if activation lock is on or not: https://www.icloud.com/activatio.... (You have to know the serial number of your iPhone for that though, and I'm not sure how you can do that since you don't have the iPhone.) I know lost mode can be turned on on iCloud in the Find My iPhone app, or you can do it on other devices associated with the same Apple ID as your lost iPhone. Lost mode allows you to lock the person out of the device (can't get back in unless they know your passcode or unless they have a fingerprint registered). It also lets you put a contact phone number and a message on there, so they will know who to return it to.I don't think your SIM being taken out will stop you from tracking it. Others are saying it would, I'm not really knowledgeable about that. If they join a wifi network, you should be able to find it (again, only if they didn't completely reset it). I am not 100% sure what will happen if they reset it, because I've just never had to think about it or deal with that before.I'm so sorry you lost your iPhone! I do hope you'll find it soon safe and sound! Thanks for asking me to answer!

Is it possible to track a stolen iPhone even after it has been reset?

Even if the person who get your phone tries to reset the iPhone by updating and restoring it, at the end of this process the device will ask for iCloud username and password. Without it the person won’t be able to anyway use your phone.The only way available to get pass this Activation Lock is by contacting apple support and produce proofs that you own the device. Only then apple support team can help in unlocking the device.For such situation the best solution is to register your device to MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution. Using MDM you can remotely wipe data off your device and also track it’s location if online. Another option is to call on the phone or display a custom message which might be useful if you send your contact details as message so that in cases where the device is lost and found by a genuine person who has no track of who the owner of the devise is and cannot access any information as the device is locked by say passcode or finger pattern, can get to know about you and return you the device. Message like “This is police department, and we ask you to return the device and leave contact number ”. Chances are by seeing such warning a fraud person by also get alert and return the device by fear of getting caught.That being said, your device is of no use to the person who stole it. Till then good luck if you happen to track it using IMEI number or using Find My Phone but for that your device need to come online (connect to internet / carrier network).