Help & Information
GEO Location Based Services
If you are using a Smartphone, laptop, games console or a tablet, chances are it has Geographical Positioning Satellite (GPS) and Wi-Fi enabled, allowing you to tag yourself into places you visit or events and concerts you attend.
Geo location is when GPS can locate you by identifying your geographical location via satellite and allows you to post your physical location on any social networking site. When your location is shared online and you regularly sign or tag yourself in to the same place at the same time, it will not take long for someone to establish your daily or weekly routine. Checking into your favourite shop or cinema is a great way of letting your friends know where you are but the downside is that it is not only your friends that can see you.
Top tips for safeguarding yourself with geo location services
- If you want to share your location with friends, ensure you limit the audience on Facebook by setting audience to ‘friends’ as opposed to ‘friends of friends’ or ‘public’.
- Add a general location which gives a broader area rather than the exact one. For example, state the county you are in and not the town.
- If you do not want to be traced via your picture, switch off the geo location on your phone
- Think carefully about who can see the location you tag yourself into and if friends tag you into a location, politely request that they do not include you.
- Set Facebook to notify you when someone has tagged you on Facebook by turning on the option to ‘review tags’. This allows you see tags you are linked to before they appear on your timeline.
- Deactivate communication connections like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G when not in use.
It is possible to locate your whereabouts just by sending a picture to your social networking sites without tagging yourself in to a particular location. Hackers are able to track your location by mapping the exact place you took the picture as Smartphones leave a hi-tech invisible trail using the same geo tracking technology that locations applications like Foursquare and handheld map apps use. Free browser add-ons can translate the data into maps, pinpoint you and translate your location into ‘real time’. There are sites that repost your picture via Twitter and include your address by translating your data. Most people who post pictures on social media platforms are unaware that their pictures are on sites other than the ones they have posted to themselves.
If friends can find you then it is possible for anybody that you do not know to find you and if someone is bullying you, it gives them the opportunity to bully you and send intimidating, nasty messages when you are out with friends or family having fun. If you tag your friends into a particular location with you, they could also become a target for a bully and may also not want their information shared online.
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