Location sharing and tracking using mobile phones or other wireless devices

A process for sending a GPS position from a first wireless device to one or more second wireless devices, comprising:

• A) receiving in a first wireless device a position update request;
• B) looking up addresses of one or more second wireless devices to which a position update is to be sent;
• C) reading GPS information and encrypting it;
• D) putting encrypted GPS information into payload portions of one or more packets of short message or email protocol format and addressing said packets to one or more wireless devices to which position updates are to be sent;
• E) transmitting the packet data to a transceiver in a cell in which said first wireless device is registered;
• F) receiving the signals containing said packet data and recovering said packets at said transceiver;
• G) routing said packets to a central switching unit;
• H) in said central switching unit routing each packet to a transceiver in a cell in which the wireless device to which said packet is addressed is registered;
• I) in each said transceiver which received one or more packets from said central switching unit, processing the data of said packets to generate radio frequency signals and transmitting said radio frequency signals to the wireless devices in said cell;
• J) in the wireless device to which the packet is addressed, recovering said the data of said one or more packets and reassembling said packets;
• K) reading the header data of said packets and routing said packets to the GPS position data sharing software application;
• L) in said GPS position data sharing software application decrypting said GPS position data and using the header information of said packets to determine the identity of the person whose GPS position data was just decrypted and using said decrypted position data to update the displayed position data of said person.