UBFound.com is a free people search that allows users to post information about the person they are looking for to the website.

Your people search post on UBFound.com will then get submitted to the major search engines in the hope that the person you are looking for or someone they know will find your post and respond.

This is a very passive people search, and I wouldn’t rely on it as the only way to find a person, but it could be one more tool to consider when trying to find someone.

UBFound’s people search service is like a modern day message in a bottle. They broadcast your people search online through the major search engines like Google and Yahoo, hoping that the person you are looking for or someone who knows them finds you through a web search.

Using UBFound’s people search service along with other people finder tools, both online and offline, would definitely be the way to go when looking for someone.

You can visit UBFound’s site at UBFound.com.

The Times Online is reporting on a unique FaceBook group that is being used to contact blood donors to let them know what blood types are needed and the locations that are in need of the blood.

A New York charity called Takes All Types collects information about the blood types that are needed in which areas, and sends out alerts to registered Facebook users who may be suitable blood donors.

Ben Bergman is a New-York-based recruiter set up the blood donor group and said that it has immediately attracted the interest of hospitals and blood banks.

Facebook.com now has over 38 million registered people that can be potential contacts for blood drive efforts.

Source: Times Online

Now you can get live help with your people searches on PeopleFinderChat.com.

People Finder Chat has launched a live free people search and help service online.

Users can chat online with a live person, who will provide tips, advice and search options to help them find a person from their past, like: friends, family, coworkers, classmates, military buddies etc.

The People Finder Chat is free for anyone to use, as long as the service is online and not busy helping other individuals.

Users can discuss who they are looking for as well as get strategies and search suggestions for finding that person.

The service is available during scheduled time slots as well as unscheduled times. As the site becomes more popular, available times are likely to be extended to help more people.

Whereas most other free people search sites offer a list of directory-style links, People Finder Chat aims to be different by providing live person-to-person search help.

If you are trying to find a person, give it a try.

A new social networking website, Gypsii.com, has developed a new people search application to track and find your friends’ locations, using cellphone technology, maps and social networks like Facebook.com.

The software allows people to pinpoint a person’s exact location in real time, using mobile phone technology as a tracking device.

Gypsii.com launched this week at a phone industry trade show in Barcelona, Spain with a service that allows people to search for and identify the locations of their friends, family and network contacts around the world.

The people finder software, currently available only for high-end cell phones, allows users to find people and locations in any area, as well as share pictures, video clips and audio files with their friends and social network globally.

Gypsii is compatible with social network websites, by allowing the location-specific functionality of a person’s cell phone to be sent to a user’s Facebook.com page, plotting their friends’ as well as their own personal location.

Some technology analysts admit that some people will be turned off at the thought of being watched, tracked or monitored by another person, even by their friends and family.

The location of a cellphone can be found in two ways:

1. By a GPS chip that allows a device to recognise its location based on communication with satellites.

2. By triangulation when a cellphone sends signals to cellphone towers located around it. By measuring the speed at which signals travel to these different communication stations, a position can be calculated for the person using the cellphone.

According to phone industry experts, cellphones can be searched and located to within a few feet of their position.

Cellphone service providers and software designers are touting services that range from personal navigation to fighting terrorism at the mobile industry’s biggest trade show in Barcelona.

Source: AFP

The Service Members’ Service Relief Act website allows users to search for and verify people on active duty with the US military.

Users of the website can input required information about a person and search the military personnel database. The website will return a “certificate” stating whether or not the Defense Manpower Data Center has information showing the searched person is currently serving on active duty in the US military. There is no fee for the personnel searches.

The Defense Manpower Data Center returns back the personal information entered into the query form by the user; no other personal data on the individual is provided on the certificate.

You can search for people on the Defense Manpower Data Center website at: Defense Manpower Data Center People Search.

For more detailed information on doing a people search on the DMDC site, please see their help page.

Skipease.com has put together 25 of the best free people search tips to help you find a person online, using various people search engines and finder sites.

You can use the people search tips below to help you find past friends, family, classmates, coworkers, military buddies etc —

People Search Tips.

People search topics include:

- Collecting your search information.

- Tips from professional people finders.

- Using 411 Whitepages and directory assistance searches.

- ZabaSearch.com free people search.

- ZoomInfo’s employment people search.

- Using social networks to find people.

- Using Spock.com and Wink.com to find a person free.

- Using blog search engines to locate people.

- Posting to Craigslist.com to help in your people search.

- Using reverse address lookups and reverse phone number lookup searches.

- How to do a free reverse cell phone lookup search online.

- The best way to do a free reverse eMail address lookup search online.

- Running a nearby or neighbor search to help you find a person.

- Finding and contacting possible relatives.

- Contacting know friends or associates of the person.

- Inmate locators and searches.

- Military locators.

- How to find out a person’s forwarding address.

- Using the Google search engine to find people.

- Using Google’s map search to search for people.

- Using Yahoo or Google Image search engines to locate a person.

- Using social security death indexes to find out if a person is deceased.

- Using free online public records searches to find people.

Emerging facial recognition technology like PolarRose.com, combined with web search engines; image and video hosting sites ( like Flickr.com and YouTube.com ) and map sites ( like Google Maps and Google Earth ), will bring about the next major advancements in doing powerful people searches online.

A new development in the area of facial recognition comes from Hung-Son Le, a computer scientist and doctoral student at the Umeå University in Sweden, who has created a computer algorithm that allows for the successful facial recognition of people from a single picture.

The recognition technology can automatically create other images of a person’s face from a single digital picture, using multiple angles, lighting conditions and facial expressions - potentially creating thousands of image variations from a single picture.

According to Hung-Son Le, current facial recognition technology is inefficient because it requires a large number of images for one person under different conditions. This technology can simulate all of these conditions from a single image.

Some commercial applications for this technology are already in the works.

This new development could have powerful implications for the practical use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement; personal and national security issues; finding missing persons and doing successful online people searches.

This new development could have powerful implications for the practical use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement; personal and national security applications; finding missing persons and doing successful online people searches.

Sources: primidi.com, umu.se

The UK’s Times Online published a unique news story in December 2007 about the reasons and ways people ( mostly men ) use to “disappear” from their current lives and start a “new” life with a different identity.

According to the article, there are numerous lifestyle and psychological reasons that go into a person’s decision to disappear, including: relationship problems, financial crises and depression.

Statistics show that two thirds of people who disappear, do so deliberately and do not want to be located.

Lost from View, a study done by York University and Missing People, found that of all missing people who are found alive, only 20 percent end up returning home for good and 40 percent refuse to renew contact with past family and friends at all. Some people ( mostly men ) take extreme measures like staging a “pseudocide” – faking your death to start a new life.

Some experts believe that as privacy becomes less and less and more relationships fall apart and financial worries mount, the basic human impulse to escape is increasing.

Frank Ahearn, a US privacy consultant who helps people disappear to start a new life, says his business has increased tenfold in the past five years. Ahearn credits the growing government intrusion into the private lives of citizens as one of the reasons for the upswing in requests for his personal privacy consulting services.

Ahearn also says that technology like the internet and cell phones have made vanishing in a modern world more possible. It is simple to run a virtual business from online without the need for a physical location. The idea of a virtual life is becoming increasingly attractive to potential runaways.

Ahearn’s list of clients include a corporate whistle-blower and a lawyer who was being stalked by a former client. He advises people to start planning their disappearance six months in advance. He advises people not to use their home phone, work or cellphone as well as not use their calling cards. In addition, do not use your credit cards to purchase anything in the location you are going to escape to.

According to psychologist Dorothy Rowe - it is an common human fantasy to disappear and start life all over in a new location. Each time there is a disaster such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the Asian tsunami some people will use the opportunity to shed their previous lives by playing dead and moving on.

Rowe says that men are twice as likely to disappear as women, often due to a loss of face at work or a decrease in social or economic standing.

Source: ‘Men just want to pick up and go’

Phone Validator is another great search service provided by Crime Time Publishing that should be a part of every skip tracer’s toolbox. The Phone Validator reverse phone number lookup allows users to reverse any US phone number to determine if the number is a landline or cell phone number.

You can use the Phone Validator lookup to reverse search any US phone number to find out if the number is a cell phone number or landline number as well as the telephone service provider that the phone number is associated.

The Phone Validator reverse lookup provides the following information from a phone number search.

1. Landline or cell phone number information.

2. Phone number service provider.

3. The US location that the phone number is associated with.

4. A handy link to WhitePages.com to see if the phone number has a directory assistance listing.

5. A search engine link to Google to find out if there are any listings for the phone number on the web. Search engines like Google are often very good for finding information online regarding unpublished phone numbers and cell phone numbers.

You can check out the Phone Validator at www.phonevalidator.com.

Crime Time Publishing has created a powerful and free social security number search site called SSN Validator that allows users to validate social security numbers against official data from the US Government’s Social Security Administration records.

Users can search a given social security number on the SSN Validator and the site will compare it to information on over 414 million issued social security numbers and return some very helpful information about the given ssn.

SSN Validator search results include:

1. State that the ssn was issued in.

2. Approximate year that the ssn was issued.

3. Whether or not the ssn has been issued by the Social Security Administration.

4. Information about whether or not the ssn appears to belong to a deceased individual as recorded in the Social Security Administration’s Death Masterfile.

The SSN Validator search is great for employers who want to do a quick and easy lookup on a prospective employee’s social security number, as well as professional skip tracers and people searchers, who want to find out which state a person’s ssn was issued in - for the possible lookup or relatives sharing the same last name.

You can check out the SSN Validator at www.ssnvalidator.com.