Can Google sync to a phone that is turned off?

[AC Question]

I lost my phone recently and I happened to not have it on lock. I took the safety precaution of barring my sim card so that any of my accounts connected to the number is blocked from unknown users. I also checked with my network carrier and found out that the number had not been used since I last lost the phone. However, when I checked my Google security today, it says that the phone was last synced yesterday morning, despite the fact that I was not able to call the phone the day before (before I locked my sim card). What does this mean? Does it mean that someone found the phone, and was able to use it via wifi or can Google still sync to the device despite the fact that it is turned off?

 

[anon(238680)]

Welcome to Android Central. Nothing would be able to sync if the device were turned off. You can lock or wipe the phone from the Android Device Manager website if you have a PC available. You should be able to remove the device from your Google account also.

If you need additional help or have more questions or details to share, please join the site so you can reply in this thread. See this link for instructions on how to join Android Central.

 

[hallux]

Locking the SIM card does not block your accounts. You should have gone into your Google account and removed access to your account from that device. Once the carrier locks the SIM card, that number can't be called until a new SIM is issued for it (when you get a new phone) but that does not mean the phone can't connect to a Wi-Fi network and still communicate with Google. I suggest going to https://android.com/devicemanager and issuing a wipe command ASAP, hopefully you had Device Manager set up as a device administrator.

If you need additional help or have more questions or details to share, please join the site so you can reply in this thread. See this link for instructions on how to join Android Central.

 

[Rukbat]

And see if your carrier can block the IMEI number. (In the US, if one carrier does that, the phone can't be used to connect to any carrier's towers - it becomes useless, until you go back to the carrier and ask them to unblock it (if you get the phone back).

Also, the convention is to have one contact named ICE (for In Case of Emergency), with the contact number of a family member or close friend. Someone may have turned the phone on looking for such a number, to return the phone, but didn't find any. (And if you're ever found, and unable to communicate [like in a car accident], the police will look for that in your contacts to notify someone.)

 

[hallux]

Also, the convention is to have one contact named ICE (for In Case of Emergency), with the contact number of a family member or close friend.

I don't have a contact named as ICE (doing this would require someone knowing your passcode to get into the device). I use the owner contact info that displays on the lock screen to display an ICE message with the name, phone number and relation of someone to contact.