Method, apparatus, and mobile terminal for collecting location information

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

• obtaining, from one or more data sources of a mobile computing device, contextual information corresponding to a state of the mobile computing device;
• analyzing the contextual information based on a condition for capturing location-identifying information for the mobile computing device;
• in response to determining that the contextual information satisfies the condition, collecting location-identifying information from one or more sensors of the mobile computing device;
• and
• uploading the location-identifying information to a server, to facilitate a user locating the mobile computing device.

A mobile computing device, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• a context-gathering module operable to obtain, from one or more data sources of the mobile computing device, contextual information corresponding to a state of the mobile computing device;
• a condition-processing module operable to analyze the contextual information based on a condition for capturing location-identifying information for the mobile computing device;
• a data-gathering module operable to collect location-identifying information from one or more sensors of the mobile computing device, in response to the condition-processing module determining that the contextual information satisfies the condition;
• and
• a data-uploading module operable to upload the location-identifying information to a server, to facilitate a user locating the mobile computing device.