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AI Overview
Geofencing creates a virtual boundary around a real-world location using GPS, cellular, or Wi-Fi data to trigger automated actions—such as alerts, notifications, or marketing messages—when a device enters or exits the zone. It is used for fleet management, marketing, security, and smart home automation.
How Geofencing Works
Virtual Boundary: A digital, geofenced perimeter is drawn on a map using specialized software, either as a radius or a custom polygon.
Location Tracking: The system monitors user devices (smartphones, GPS trackers) that have location services enabled
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Trigger Action: When a device crosses the boundary, a predefined action is initiated, such as sending a push notification, email, or updating a database.
How to Set Up a Geofence
Select a Platform: Use a GPS tracking service, marketing tool, or API like Google's.
Define the Area: Draw a circle or custom shape on a digital map around a specific location.
Set Parameters: Define whether the action is triggered by entry, exit, or dwell time.
Configure Actions: Set up notifications (e.g., alert manager) or actions (e.g., serve an ad).
Benefits of Geofencing
Targeted Marketing: Delivering, customized, ads or offers to customers, nearby.
Operational Efficiency: Tracking vehicles, and, assets in, real-time for better logistics.
Enhanced Security: Receiving, alerts when, unauthorized vehicles move after-hours.
Automation: Adjusting, smart home, devices like, lights or, HVAC based on occupancy.
Limitations and Legal Implications
Privacy Concerns: Constant tracking of user locations raises significant privacy issues.
Battery Drain: Continuous use of GPS/location services can significantly reduce battery life on mobile devices.
Accuracy Issues: GPS signals can be unreliable in dense urban environments or indoors, leading to false alerts.
Data Consent: Users must typically opt-in to location tracking, making compliance with data protection regulations crucial.
Car geofencing real time
Real-time car Geofencing uses GPS trackers (like Bouncie, BrickHouse, or Cube) to create virtual boundaries, instantly alerting you via app, text, or email when a vehicle enters or exits a defined area. These systems provide live location tracking, crucial for security, fleet management, and driver monitoring, with instant notifications for boundary breaches.
Key Features of Real-Time Geofencing:
Instant Alerts: Receive notifications immediately when a car crosses a designated boundary.
Custom Boundaries: Set up "safe zones" (home, work) or "prohibited zones" (restricted areas).
Live Tracking: Monitor vehicle location in real-time, often with updates every few seconds to minutes.
Activity Logs: Review detailed history of when a vehicle entered or left a specific zone.
Applications: Useful for preventing theft, managing teen drivers, or tracking company vehicle usage.
Popular Real-Time Geofencing Devices:
Bouncie: Plugs into the OBDII port for real-time, up-to-the-minute updates.
BrickHouse Security: Offers Spark Nano 7 for discreet, real-time tracking.
Cube GPS: Provides worldwide 4G tracking with app-based alerts and hardwire options.
ShadowGPS: Features motion-based alerts, custom geofences, and speed monitoring.
These systems typically operate via a mobile app (iOS/Android) or web portal and require a cellular data subscription for real-time functionality.
Geofencing police monitoring and surveillance
Geofencing allows law enforcement to create a virtual perimeter, enabling surveillance of all mobile devices within a specific location and time frame to identify suspects.
Primarily using Google’s "Sensorvault" or tools like Fog Reveal to track movements, this technology offers real-time monitoring and historical analysis for investigations. It raises major privacy concerns and Fourth Amendment challenges.
Key Aspects of Police Geofencing
Geofence Warrants: A formal, often controversial request to companies like Google to identify every device in a specified area at a specific time, sometimes used without traditional probable cause.
"Reverse Search" Method: Police define a crime scene (location) and time to find potential suspects, rather than starting with a suspect to find evidence.
Data Sources: Data is harvested from GPS, cell tower triangulation, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi, revealing precise location history, including movements inside private homes or businesses.
"Pattern of Life" Analysis: Tools like Fog Reveal enable police to track a device's history to identify "bed-down" (home) locations and daily routines.
Legal Challenges: In 2024, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled these warrants "inherently unconstitutional", though other courts have disagreed, creating a split that may reach the Supreme Court.
Common Use Cases
Criminal Investigations: Identifying suspects in robberies, murders, or crimes.
Real-time Tracking: Monitoring for when a device enters or leaves a designated zone.
Proactive Policing: Creating virtual perimeters around sensitive locations or public events.
Risks and Privacy Concerns
Dragnet Surveillance: Innocent individuals within the geofenced area have their private data swept up by law enforcement.
Accuracy Issues: While precise, data may not be 100% complete.
Lack of Transparency: Often, the use of such tools is rarely mentioned in court records, making defense challenging.
Critics argue these tools amount to general warrants, which are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
Geofencing and warrants and arrest
Geofence warrants are legal orders compelling companies like Google to identify all mobile devices within a specific, user-defined geographic area and timeframe to help police find suspects when none are known. They are "reverse" searches that often sweep up data from innocent bystanders, raising significant fourth amendment and privacy concerns.
How Geofence Warrants Lead to Arrests
The Process: Law enforcement defines a crime scene (e.g., a bank robbery) and requests data for a specific time, allowing them to see all devices present.
Data Analysis: Companies (primarily Google) provide data, often in stages: first anonymized, then more specific data for devices of interest, and finally, user identification for identified suspects.
Suspect Identification: Police analyze the data to find patterns or individuals who visited the scene, using this to establish probable cause for an arrest.
Common Use Cases: These warrants are used to investigate crimes like murder, robbery, burglary, and even for identifying individuals in protest areas.
Key Concerns and Legal Status
Constitutional Disputes: These warrants are often considered "general warrants" because they allow searching for suspects without pre-existing evidence, which may violate the Fourth Amendment.
Conflicting Rulings: In 2024, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled them inherently unconstitutional, though allowed them under the "good faith exception". Other courts have different, sometimes conflicting, opinions.
Privacy Impact: They can expose the movement data of thousands of innocent people to the police.
Declining Use: Due to privacy pressures, Google has begun to restrict how it handles these requests, although law enforcement still attempts to use them.
Important Considerations
Inaccuracy: GPS data may be inaccurate, leading to the potential for wrong arrests.
Search Scope: Warrants can cover large areas, including private homes, businesses, and public spaces, for hours or days.
The Supreme Court: The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the constitutionality of these, as lower courts are divided.
Geofencing for police surveillance and monitoring
Geofencing for police surveillance uses virtual, GPS-based perimeters to track, monitor, and identify suspects by collecting data on all mobile devices within a specific area and time.
Primarily executed through "geofence warrants" targeting companies like Google, this technique identifies individuals present during crimes, often functioning as a dragnet that captures innocent bystanders.
Key Aspects of Police Geofencing
Definition & Mechanism: Law enforcement establishes a "virtual fence" around a crime scene. They then compel technology companies (e.g., Google, through its Sensorvault database) to provide data on all mobile devices that were within that area during a specified timeframe.
The Three-Step Process:
Search: Google searches its database for all devices in the area.
Anonymized Data: Google provides anonymized data to police.
Identification: Police narrow the search, and Google reveals the identity of the users of interest.
Use Cases: These tools are used to solve crimes ranging from homicides to theft.
Scope: Warrants can cover areas from a few feet to over an acre and durations from minutes to days.
Legal & Ethical Concerns:
Fourth Amendment Challenges: Critics argue that these warrants act as a "dragnet" and constitute unreasonable search and seizure, as they do not start with a specific suspect.
Legal Divergence: While some courts have upheld them, others, such as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, have ruled them unconstitutional.
Data Limitation: Google has announced it will change how it stores location data, limiting the effectiveness of these warrants.
Have you ever checked your phone’s Maps app to see a section of the freeway highlighted in red, indicating a traffic slowdown? This is useful information, but how does Google know about the traffic jam in the first place?
Some might suspect Google is monitoring actual traffic conditions, but that assumption is incorrect. Rather, the search giant provides real-time traffic information by using GPS to track the movement of cell phones within their owners’ cars.
Slow phones = slow cars = traffic. By tracking and recording the position of billions of individual devices in real time, Google provides a helpful service to consumers.
Google’s Location History
Google uses a feature called Location History to pull this off. According to Google, the feature is turned off by default, requiring a user to affirmatively opt in to make use of location-related information.
Deleting Location History or even pausing being tracked can be confusing for users. If you delete the application that prompted the opt-in, Google may continue to collect GPS data through your account. Even if you turn off Location History in your Google account, the company may sometimes still collect time-stamped location data from your device through other applications or services. For example, if you access Maps — whether it is to get directions or to read reviews for local businesses — your phone may still report its location to Google even if you have opted out. Similarly, searching for just about anything can trigger your phone to report its location to Google.
All told, Google is tracking over a billion devices worldwide, both Android and iOS, and saving that data to help provide services and advertising to its users. And this data can be extremely helpful to law enforcement investigators.
While GPS is not new technology, the use of geofence warrants in law enforcement investigations is relatively recent.
What Is a Geofence Warrant?
A geofence warrant is a formal request from law enforcement to a provider (usually Google) to provide the Location History data of every device within a defined geographic region and within a specific time frame. Those two factors — the location and the time — are the most important elements of a geofence warrant. The purpose of the warrant is to eventually narrow down a single user from the list of devices returned by the provider, with the goal of identifying that device owner as the perpetrator of a crime.
The most obvious way devices are tracked is through the global positioning system, or GPS, which is usually accurate to within a dozen or so feet in optimal conditions. Device locations may also be tracked using cell phone tower triangulation as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections. Location History information can often reveal a device location much more precisely than cell site location data. Providers like Google collect this data every two minutes or so, so it is not always 100% complete. However, it is generally accurate enough to show that a device (and its owner) was in a specific area at a specific time.
While GPS is not new technology, the use of geofence warrants in law enforcement investigations is relatively recent. Whereas GPS triangulation targets a specific person already known to police, geofence warrants are different in that they cast a fairly wide net. According to a 2022 Slate article, “Google received its first geofence warrant in 2016. Law enforcement’s use of these warrants has grown exponentially since then. Warrants to Google for users’ location information grew 1,500 percent from 2017 to 2018 and 500 percent from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, Google received about 9,000 geofence requests.” That number has continued to grow in the ensuing years.
The Geofence Warrant Process
Picture this: Police receive a report of a shooting at a convenience store. According to eyewitnesses and CCTV, two suspects entered the store, demanded cash from the register, and after an altercation, shot at the store clerk. The incident lasted five minutes. The suspects left the store around 3:15 p.m., ran to a vehicle and drove northbound for two blocks before eyewitnesses lost sight of them.
Based on these facts, police may determine that cell phone location data could be helpful in identifying the suspects. Requesting device information from Google is a three-step process:
Step 1: The investigator sends a warrant to Google requesting information on devices with estimated locations that were within the area (e.g., a two- to three-block perimeter around the convenience store) and time frame (e.g., 3:00 to 3:30 p.m.) defined in the warrant. Google uses Location History data to identify devices matching the warrant criteria. At this point, device owners are still completely anonymous to law enforcement. Instead of user information, the devices are tagged with a code that hides their personal identifying information from investigators.
Step 2: If the investigator can narrow down the results after analyzing the de-identified list of devices and their locations, they may request additional information about specific devices and their locations before and after the time frame in the warrant, as well as outside the geographic “fence” (the original location). For example, if Step 1 provides two devices that were exiting the convenience store at the time and driving in the direction that corresponds with the eyewitnesses, then in Step 2, the investigator may request that Google provide additional information about those devices — specifically, additional Location History data. Now we are outside the original time frame (3:00 to 3:30 p.m.) and the original location (two to three blocks from the convenience store) of the original geofence warrant.
Step 3: Using the information from the first two steps, investigators further narrow down any devices that closely match the pattern of evidence for possible suspects, and request account information (including names and email addresses) from the provider. Slate points out that “Google ‘prefers’ that this third set of users be narrowed from the second set, but it’s possible, at least, that sometimes that doesn’t happen.”
Note that a judge-approved warrant is currently only required before Step 1 in the process. The rest of the steps happen without any additional oversight from the courts. The process appears, rather, to be managed by a Google employee and the law enforcement investigator. Google appears to be using this process to respect users’ privacy and limit the data released to law enforcement. Nonetheless, some people see this as problematic.
Privacy and Accuracy Concerns
Geofence warrants can be useful in investigations, but they are not without their controversy. One relates to privacy. By their very nature, geofence warrants return data on devices owned by innocent people who may not have even been witnesses to the crime.
In a much-criticized warrant relating to the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, the FBI requested and received from Google a list of 5,723 devices that was eventually pared down to 1,535 names and used to identify and prosecute participants. A Reason article about the case notes that a warrant of this kind “arguably allows law enforcement to work backward, to say, We think a crime was committed around this place and this time. Let’s sweep up location data for everyone who was there and investigate them all.” This process, author Bonnie Kristian notes, is uncomfortably similar to a “general warrant,” which is exactly what the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent.
Another issue is accuracy. While GPS data appears to be accurate within 10 or 11 feet, that is not always the case. Trees, buildings, bridges and other structures can interfere with the connection to the satellites that allow the system to work. This can cause “dirty data” that may result in innocent people being swept up in the investigation who were not even in the location of the crime when it occurred. Conversely, this potential for inaccuracy can exclude the actual perpetrators. In one case, Jorge Molina was arrested in Arizona and held in jail for six days after location data falsely tied him to an Avondale murder — in spite of Molina having a solid alibi. He subsequently filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against the city of Avondale, its chief of police, and several officers.
Important Cases
Two cases illustrate both the concerns and successes regarding geofence warrants.
United States v. Chatrie
On May 20, 2019, a gunman robbed the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia. The suspect got away with $195,000, escaping on foot. As part of its investigation, law enforcement filed a geofence warrant with Google, which produced responsive Location History information. An analysis of the data led police to arrest Okello Chatrie and charge him with the robbery. Chatrie’s defense team filed a motion to suppress the location data on Fourth Amendment and other grounds.
In her ruling on the motion to suppress, U.S. District Court Judge Hannah Lauck called into question the validity and legality of the sweeping warrant. In part, she said, “Astoundingly, the Government claims that law enforcement established probable cause to obtain all information (Steps 1, 2, and 3) from all users within the geofence without any narrowing measures. Yet the warrant simply did not include any facts to establish probable cause to collect such broad and intrusive data from each one of these individuals.” Since investigators gathered location information on 19 cell phones, only one of which may have been the suspect’s, the judge indicated that the warrant violated the constitutional rights of at least 18 innocent people.
Another concern was the size and scope of the geofence: The perimeter was roughly the length of three football fields, and the time frame was an hour. The judge thought this constituted an overly large dragnet from which to collect device location data.
In spite of her reservations, though, the judge denied the motion and permitted the data gleaned from the geofence warrant on the basis that the detective who had been working with Google in Steps 1, 2, and 3 had acted in good faith. In the conclusion of her decision, she stated: “If the Government is to continue to employ these warrants, it must take care to establish particularized probable cause. As the legal landscape confronts newly developed technology and further illuminates Fourth Amendment rights in the face of geofence practices, future geofence warrants may require additional efforts to seek court approval in between steps, or to limit the geographic and temporal information sought. But in light of the complex legal issues that lead to this Court’s conclusion, the Court cannot say that Det. Hylton’s reliance on the Geofence Warrant was objectively unreasonable.”
In the end, Okello Chatrie was convicted of the bank robbery charges and sentenced to nearly 12 years in federal detention.
Price v. Superior Court of Riverside County
On Oct. 29, 2019, a man referred to in court records as “Jovany R.” was shot and killed on the front porch of his home in Jurupa Valley near Riverside, California. According to investigators, Jovany had been growing marijuana in the home, and they believed the crime was related to his grow house operation. A man named Ahmad Raheem Price was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and unlawful possession of the firearm used to commit the murder.
During their investigation, law enforcement submitted a geofence warrant to Google. In contrast to the Chatrie warrant, the area in this case was limited to “the front porch area where the shooting occurred, and the street in front of the house … for the lengths of two houses in each direction (north and south), between 10:00 p.m. and 10:22 p.m. … a 22-minute period.” This time and location was based on eyewitness testimony as well as 911 calls that provided specific information regarding where and when the crime occurred.
In advance of the trial, Price’s legal team filed a motion to suppress (among other things) the information gained from the geofence warrant on the grounds that the request “(1) failed to satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements; (2) had to be traversed based on material factual omissions in their affidavits; and (3) violated the particularity and notice requirements of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act.”
Unlike the federal court in the Chatrie case, the Price court held that the warrant was “narrowly tailored” and did not question whether the warrant left too much discretion in the hands of law enforcement. This was because the court found that this geofence warrant “was a model of particularity in geographic scope and time period.” In denying the petition, the judge praised the investigators for how the warrant was drafted to “minimize the potential for capturing location data for uninvolved individuals.”
The motion to suppress was denied and Price was tried and convicted in early 2023.
Key Takeaways
If you are a law enforcement investigator and want to use geofence warrants in your investigations, here are some tips for helping to ensure your geofence warrants stand up to scrutiny in a future prosecution:
Narrow Geography: Draw your geofence as tightly as you can, based on the information you have about the crime and who might have committed it. The smaller the geographic area, the more likely the warrant will be considered particularized, and, hopefully, sustain Fourth Amendment challenges. For example, the Chatrie court suggested that instead of simply circling a radius around the crime scene, which can sweep up innocent devices, investigators should have used what they knew about the crime to draw a specific polygon around the area instead. In other words, try to eliminate extraneous areas if you reasonably can.
Limited Time Period: Similarly, be sure to use the narrowest possible time frame, within reason, to limit the number of irrelevant devices (and their owners) returned in the results of Step 1.
Justify Each Step: When you request additional information in Steps 2 and 3, document the logic you used to narrow down the initial list. This will help ensure that you are not “fishing” and help you justify your requests for additional information from the provider.
Involve the Prosecutor: Do not attempt to do all this by yourself. Work with the prosecutor or your agency counsel as you draft your geofence warrant and work your way through the steps. You may get some good advice during the process, leading to a properly completed and successful investigation.
Geofence warrants are just one of several fascinating new tools being used to investigate crimes. The more you know about them, and the better you adhere to the best practices, the more successful you will be as you put them to work in your investigations.
Update: January 4, 2024
On December 12, 2023, Google announced substantial changes to how and where it stores users’ Location History data. According to the company’s public release, Location History information will be transitioned from storage in centralized databases to being encrypted and saved on individual users’ devices. The company announced users will be given the option of backing up this data to personal cloud-based storage, where the information would not be accessible to Google. Also, Google will be reducing the default rule for the automatic deletion of Location History data from 18 months to three.
According to Skye Witley, writing for Bloomberg Law, this change “will eventually render the company unable to fulfill geofence warrants, which typically seek to identify anyone with Google accounts who was within a given perimeter during the time of a crime.” In 2021 the company stated that more than 25% of all law enforcement warrant applications in the U.S. were related to geofence requests.
In covering the story for Forbes.com, Cyrus Farivar and Thomas Brewster revealed a “current Google employee … told Forbes that along with the obvious privacy benefits of encrypting location data, Google made the move to explicitly bring an end to such dragnet location searches.” While the newly announced change won’t block government agencies from requesting user and account information from Google, Farivar and Brewster emphasize, it will prevent the company from being able to produce time-stamped geo-location details that were requested to implicate users in a criminal investigation.
Google has indicated these new data policies “will gradually roll out through the next year,” so it is possible the company could still produce responsive data for cases that happened prior to the change.
Fog Data Science, when you give some apps permission to view your location, it can end up being packaged and sold to numerous other companies. Fog Data Science is one of those companies, and it has created a sleek search engine called Fog Reveal that allows cops to browse through that location data as if they were Google Maps results.
Here's a deep dive into Fog Reveal’s features. Although accounts for Reveal are typically only available to police departments, we're going to analyze the app’s public-facing code to get a better understanding of how it works, how it’s used, and what it looks like when cops get warrantless access to your location data.
Fog Reveal offers law enforcement a powerful and incredibly invasive tool for sifting through huge datasets of phone location data. Reveal’s workflow allows cops to perform “geofenced” device searches, i.e. a search for all devices in a specified region on a map, and then find all other locations those devices were at other times. A powerpoint presentation obtained from a Police Department gives us a look into how cops use these features to identify so-called “bed-down” locations and build up “patterns of life” for device’s owners. These features clearly undercut Fog’s claim that their product only contains “anonymized” data with “no PII [personally identifiable information]”.
Also Reveal’s frontend code contains the traces of a much more powerful “federal” featureset, which would allow users to further deanonymize data by revealing device Advertiser IDs, IP addresses, and other phone details. We do not know if these features are currently in use, but regardless, they demonstrate how simply showing a few more data fields can make a data aggregation tool like this much more invasive.
Methodology
To properly interpret our findings, it’s important to understand what kind of software Fog Reveal is, and to explain our research methodology. Fog Reveal, like Google Maps, is a web application that runs in your browser. To research its functionality, we locally reconstructed the app based on the web resources available by visiting www.fogreveal.com. This was possible because upon loading the page, without logging in or even clicking anything, the site automatically requests nearly all the javascript/HTML needed by the fully functional app. Throughout this document, we’ll be referring to the javascript and HTML pulled from Reveal as the “frontend” or “frontend code”, and to its server-side application as the “backend” or “backend code.”
By saving Reveal’s frontend files and organizing them into directories mirroring their original URL paths, we made a local reproduction of the site’s resources. From there, we utilized a mock backend server to serve the files and handle API calls made by the frontend, and then systematically worked out the format of data expected from that API. Once this was done, we had a semi-functional local reproduction of Reveal that made no requests to Fog’s actual server, and yet allowed us to explore its features.
Because our mock server isn’t an exact replica of Reveal’s actual backend, we should preface this by saying that our findings here only apply to the frontend code, as our mock server’s functionality is based on educated guesses and only returns fake location data. Consequently, it’s possible that our local reproduction’s behavior differs from Fog’s actual application. Where appropriate, we will cite the relevant frontend code and point out where uncertainties remain, and in general will describe our estimation of Fog Reveal’s actual features with as few assumptions about the backend as possible.
With that out of the way, let’s now take a look at our findings on Fog Reveal’s features. All of the data depicted in the following document, including latitude/longitude coordinates and IP addresses, are fake data generated randomly by our mock backend server.
Making a query
After signing into Reveal, the user is presented with a Google Maps view of the US, as well as a toolbox at the top-right of the screen:
Reveal’s frontend shows several tools for drawing geofences, the most basic of which is just a circle:
If this isn’t specific enough, users can also draw arbitrary shapes to carve out a more detailed geofence:
The frontend limits the size of these geofence queries, although those limits are quite large. For example, the frontend circle tool will allow queries with a radius of 2500 meters, allowing up to nearly 20 square kilometers when performing a “signal search.” It’s possible that the backend imposes further limitations.
The user can also specify a date and time range for their query, and it seems that these ranges can stretch back over several months: a copy of Fog Reveal’s user manual received from a Police Department claims that date/time ranges can extend up to 90 days, and can be searched “back to Jun[e] of 2017”.
Query Results
After specifying a geofence and date/time range, the user can run their query. Queries return a set of data points, referred to as “signals” in the user manual, which represent where a device was at a given point in time. The user can then do further analysis on these signals, such as grouping them by the device that produced them, or displaying the path taken by the device over time:
Digging deeper with device queries
The frontend code suggests that Fog creates unique internal identifiers for devices–called “Fog IDs” (or “registration IDs,” which we understand to be the same as Fog’s “device registration number”). These unique identifiers can be queried directly, allowing users to get all signals produced by devices within a certain period of time, regardless of whether they were in the original geofence or not:
In the user manual, this feature is called a “device query” and is described as including data from the device’s “local, regional or global travel.” The user manual also describes a feature called “common device queries”, which allow the user to determine “if any devices are common to multiple locations.”
Federal features
If certain user parameters are set, Reveal will update its logo to display “Reveal Federal”, and enables the frontend to request a much more powerful suite of query tools from the backend. The frontend code suggests that these conditions may occur if the user is a member of federal law enforcement, but because we have no public records mentioning any such federal users, we don’t know for sure which users (if any) this is true for. For the purposes of this document, we will refer to these hypothetical users as federal users.
Federal users have access to an interface for converting between Fog’s internal device IDs (“FOG IDs”) and the device’s actual Advertiser ID:
This is eyebrow raising for a couple reasons. First, if this feature is operational, it would contradict assurances made in a sample State search warrant Fog sends to customers that FOG IDs can’t be converted back into Advertiser IDs. Second, if users could retrieve the Advertiser IDs of all devices in a query’s results, it would make Reveal far more capable of unmasking the identities of those device’s owners. This is due to the fact that if you have access to a device, you can read its Advertiser ID, and thus law enforcement would be able to verify if a specific person’s device was part of a query’s results.
Additionally, when a federal user views the devices in their results, the frontend is designed to show them a great deal more information about each device than it does non-federal users. Assuming that the backend provides this data, a federal user could view device information such as:
User Agent
Browser Family
Browser Version
OS Family
OS Version
Device Family
Device Brand
Device Model
Whether the device belongs to an EU Resident
Last Seen IP Addresses
Federal users are also given an interface to query for signals/devices based on one or more IP addresses:
Connections to Venntel
Many of the features we analyzed in this article are powered by API calls that reference Venntel, a major player in the data broker scene and DHS contractor. Although it’s true that Fog’s engineers could have named these API endpoints arbitrarily, the way they function does seem to suggest that Venntel is a source of location and device data for Reveal.
Notably, when a Reveal user performs any geofenced device query, that query is submitted to the URL path /Venntel/GetLocationData. Additionally, queries for specific device locations send a request to /Venntel/GetDeviceLocationData, and when a federal user makes a request for more device details, the frontend sends a request to /Venntel/GetDeviceDetails. This means that nearly all frontend requests having to do with searching device or location data are prefixed with “Venntel”. And this wouldn’t be the only connection between Fog and Venntel: many of the records EFF has received point to a close link between the two companies.
Conclusions
As we've seen, Fog Reveal provides law enforcement a powerfully invasive tool for searching huge swaths of commercially available location data. With a few clicks, its users can find not only the devices present in a location, but also everywhere else each of those devices went during other time periods. Its federal featureset, whether currently in use or not, demonstrates how much more invasive the tool could be by only revealing a handful of other fields.
If you’re not happy about the idea of your location data possibly being sold to companies like Fog, we don’t blame you. Luckily, there’s an easy step you can take to make it much harder for data brokers and companies like Fog to tie your location data to your device: disabling Ad ID tracking on your phone. Beyond that, we believe that there are changes needed at both the technical and legal levels to prevent this kind of invasive data collection and usage.
It’s high time you integrate geofencing into your business. It’s proven to get you more sales, engagement, and loyal customers.
Geofencing is a location-based service that businesses use to engage their audience by sending relevant messages to smartphone users who enter a pre-defined location or geographic area.
There are smart companies that send product offers or specific promotions to consumers’ smartphones when they trigger a search in a particular geographic location, enter a mall, neighborhood, or store.
Do you desire to improve your customer experience? I’m sure you are, considering that 90% of customer experience decision-makers have agreed that a good customer experience is critical for their success.
And with customers being the major source of revenue for every business, delivering high-quality service through geofencing is important. If you’re into any form of digital marketing, you need to take this seriously as it’d help you acquire new customers and convert them into paying customers.
A Study by Bain & Company shows that a little increase of 5% in customer retention, can lead to a profit increase of 25% to 95%. Trust me, these numbers are worth paying attention to!
Since customer retention is too challenging, knowing how to interact with your potential leads in a more personalized manner will definitely help.
A research report by Experian shows that personalized emails sent to consumers have a great effect on open rate, triggered open rate, promotional click rates, and triggered click rates.
So, the earlier you start reaching out to potential and loyal consumers at the most relevant time, with the relevant product/service, the better the results you’re likely to get.
So how do you achieve it?
Simple: Integrate “geofencing” into your marketing strategy and you’d be amazed at the consistent results that you’ll get. Creating geofencing campaigns can truly transform every facet of your business.
Does it work? Well, Papa John’s is renowned for their Super Bowl ads, but they ran a mobile ad triggered by Geofencing solutions from ThumbVista, to promote their Papa Loyalty Programs.
At the end of the campaign, the brand recorded over 68K impressions with 469 actions taken resulting with a .69% CTR. They also gained a brand awareness with the rewards program in a new market area.
You might have heard of it, or this could be your very first time to hear it — and I guess you’re now wondering what it’s all about.
Having been introduced to geofencing and how it can help with customer service, let’s consider a few definitions.
What is Geofencing?
According to Techopedia, geofencing is described as:
“A technology that defines a virtual boundary around a real-world geographical area.”
While Wikipedia defines it as:
“Virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area.”
It’s not some complicated programming language or complex development tool.
Geofencing is a technique of serving smartphone users with ads that are relevant to them, by creating a virtual perimeter or boundary around your business location which notifies users as soon as they enter the boundary.
In other words, geofencing can be regarded as a mobile marketing optimization strategy. So far, you could see the bright side of your business as you leverage on mobile ads that are targeted to your customers within a geographic location.
People are always ‘on the go,’ but they always have their smartphones with them — which they use to research products and services before buying them.
A report by the Office for National Statistics revealed that 58% of internet use ‘on the go’ is on mobile phones or smartphones.
For this reason, you’re no longer at a crossroad on whether you should start building geofencing campaigns or ignore it. Right now, it’s an important aspect of your marketing strategy.
Is Geofencing Right For Your Business?
Why is geofencing so important today?
You may not fully be aware, but let’s review some of the reasons that will make you kick yourself in the butt for not leveraging it:
i) Easy customer reach: When it comes to reaching out to your customers, geofencing is an option you shouldn’t neglect — because it notifies your customer about your product/services whenever they’re close to your business location through their mobile phone. That’s cool, isn’t it?
There’s no doubt as to the results it will generate, especially when you consider how addicted people are to their mobile phones.
ii) Instant consideration: Can you call the attention of your customers instantly when they walk by your store without shouting at the top of your voice?
I doubt.
Through geofencing, you’re able to trigger instant messages that pique a customer’s interest and nudges them to come check out the latest deals in your store. Remember that 90% of SMS are read within 3 minutes — so, geofencing campaigns help consumers make informed and instant decisions.
iii) Grows brand awareness: The mobile marketing strategy that leverages on geofencing provides local and multi-channel businesses, the chance to communicate with their potential consumers who are close by and ready to purchase through mobile phones.
These messages serve as a reminder to your consumers to choose your brand out of the thousands of other similar businesses around a particular location.
iv) Reduction in cost of marketing: With the high cost of creating ads campaign, using geofencing is sure to cut down the cost and still produce a great result — since it only focuses on local consumers and these consumers are likely to buy from you.
Geofencing is more like an extension of your restaurant, store or shop. And with geofencing you don’t need to stand in front of your store to call anybody that passes by, because you’ve already known your potential consumers.
You’re also provided with the opportunity to offer your products/services to your customers at the right time when they’re in need of it.
With the availability of GPS on virtually all smartphones and tablets, efficient tracking is now easier for both marketers and consumers.
This new development has also given rise to new marketing opportunities for online entrepreneurs, because they can now locate their potential consumers right on the go.
A lot of brands have recorded success through their geofencing campaigns — especially those with highly classified data that need utmost security.
Here are some of the business models or organisations that can make use geofencing application:
i) Asset management: The application will notify a network administrator when a company asset, meant to be used within the firm goes out. And from there, they can track the location and also lock it from being accessed.
ii) Fleet management: In this field, geofencing is used to notify a dispatcher when their vehicle goes out from its route.
iii) Human resource management: Here geofencing is used to restrict staff from having access to some spaces within the firm, without a second authentication.
iv) Drone management: It’s used to create a temporary restricted area for drones, during a sporting event.
v) Marketing: A brand can use geofencing to notify their customers of their coupons, new product, or ongoing promo when the consumer enters a specified geographical region with their mobile phone.
vi) Law enforcement: In this instance, geofencing can help the security authority when a person under house arrest goes out from the building.
How Does Geofencing Work?
So far, we’ve covered a lot about geofencing and what it can do for your business. Do you know how it works?
It’s simple though. Geofencing helps you to keep in control of your business by notifying you when a potential consumer is passing by your store, by a competitor’s, or entering into a predefined area.
To get it working, you need to use a mapping product like Google Map to map out the regions you want to geofence. This region can be in a circular or polygon shape in most cases.
Once your desired region is mapped out for geofencing, you can then target your consumers via their mobile phone’s GPS.
Then, you can monitor your geofence through the day for potential prospects or customers who might be interested in your offer. It keeps to track them until that parameter is breached — either they’re trying to enter or to go out.
In fact, for a successful geofencing to be attained, you also need to incorporate a definite customer targeting, and personalized messages.
Solely depending on technology is not effective.
Benefits Of Geofencing
The need to leverage on geofencing cannot be overemphasized. Though it’s still a new practice, but the rate of success achieved with it is immeasurable.
A study shows that consumers love receiving location-specific offers right on their phone, due to its location relevance and interest.
That said, here are some benefits you wouldn’t like to miss:
i) It serves as an ads portal: This is obtained when potential consumers are close to your store and you’re notified of their presence. Sending your new products to them, free giveaways and discounts, will definitely get them to consider your store.
ii) It targets your potential consumers: Social media has a bigger marketing opportunity since it’s populated with a lot of consumers that are ready to read your messages and stick to your brand.
But with the help of geofencing, you can focus your campaign to the user that are more likely to convert — especially those local consumers.
Interestingly, these are the consumers that will be excited to walk into your store and make a purchase after seeing your ads.
iii) It links your offline business to your online presence: With geofencing, you can notify passersby to look you up on social media for better customer engagement.
In fact, it serves as your gateway to your social media and internet identity.
iv) It provides real-time analytics: No doubt, a good marketing requires a to-and-fro conversation between the customers and the marketers.
Geofencing makes it a lot easier and more effective.
Because it notifies you as soon as a consumer enters your marketing region so that you can properly prepare to receive them in your store.
v) It offers a service: Since the mobile use rate is high and users are highly interested when they’re online, offering a free WiFi in your Restaurant, Bar, and Hospital will definitely improve customer experience.
This can be achieved by simply sending messages to passersby via geofencing, and notifying them of the free WiFi they can enjoy while in your place.
And don’t forget this has its benefits.
vi) It secures your products: Since you can keep track of people’s location with geofencing, it can also be used for tracking your employees and products.
With this technology, you get notified when an employee leaves his/her duty post or when a product is illegally removed.
Case Studies From Companies Using Geofencing
The use of geofencing is gradually becoming popular, though it’s a new marketing practice. Good news is, businesses have recorded lots of success with it. Let’s see:
i) Elle Magazine successfully increased sales with ‘shop now!’ mobile pop-up to connect potential buyers to selected stores, using the location-based offer. All thanks to geofencing.
ii) Uber Car Hiring Service also used geofencing at LAX to notify people around that they can get a cab to wherever they’re going within a minute, just with a click.
iii) Wal-Mart is another brand making it real big with geofencing. Their app comes with a store mode that picks up signals when a buyer is within the store, and delivers coupons and e-receipts.
Geofencing Tools
Getting appropriate marketing tools will help you get things done on time and more efficiently. Below are some of the best tools you can use:
i) xAd: This tool eliminates every form of assumption in marketing, because it serves messages based on your potential consumer’s location.
xAd has a proprietary platform that automatically creates boundaries around places often visited by a consumer. For example, a Restaurant, Shopping mall.
It’s with these insights that marketers can target ads to their customers when they’re within those locations.
ii) Koupon Media: This tool prompts a targeted offer to shoppers when they’re within the store.
Koupon Media has features that study the behavioral attribute of buyers within the geofenced locations, and uses it to present the buyer with offers they can’t resist while they are shopping.
iii) NinthDecimal: This helps marketers to target consumers near their own stores or competitor’s locations, with tangible media ads through phone calls, appointment requests, and couponing.
It also has a walking and driving map to easily lead your customers to your nearest sales point.
In Conclusion
“In today’s modern world, people are either asleep or connected.”
– Janice H. Reinold said.
Your customers are attached to their mobile phones all the time. It’s your responsibility to engage these customers when they’re not asleep.
Also:
What Are Geofences and How Do They Work?
Also:
Also:
What is Geofencing
