{"id":18395,"date":"2022-03-03T12:28:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T12:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/03\/your-wi-fi-info-is-in-google-and-microsofts-databases-should-you-care\/"},"modified":"2022-03-03T12:28:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T12:28:57","slug":"your-wi-fi-info-is-in-google-and-microsofts-databases-should-you-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/03\/your-wi-fi-info-is-in-google-and-microsofts-databases-should-you-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Wi-Fi Info Is in Google and Microsoft\u2019s Databases: Should You Care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Did you know that Google, Microsoft, and even Apple have big databases of nearly all the Wi-Fi networks in the world? It\u2019s true, and your information is in those databases. You can take action\u2014but should you even care?<\/p>\n

Sending Wi-Fi Locations to the Cloud<\/h2>\n

When you use \u201clocation services,\u201d your devices are regularly sending lists of nearby networks to the platform holder: Google, Microsoft, or Apple.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re pulling up Apple Maps on an iPhone, telling Microsoft Edge to share your location with a website on Windows, or providing your location to an app on Android, Wi-Fi details are being transmitted as part of the location-finding process.<\/p>\n

GPS Just Isn\u2019t Enough<\/h2>\n
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Our devices aren\u2019t just using\u00a0GPS<\/a> to determine our physical location\u2014and for good reason. GPS can be slow and have poor coverage in some areas. Moreover, some devices don\u2019t even have GPS radios, including most\u00a0Windows laptops<\/a>, MacBooks<\/a>, and Chromebooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s called \u201clocation services\u201d and not just \u201cGPS\u201d on modern devices. Location services encompasses multiple ways of finding your location\u2014including using big databases of Wi-Fi network details owned by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple.<\/p>\n

If you turn off location services, your device will often fall back to just using GPS, if available. This will be slower than using location services.<\/p>\n

What Information Is In the Database?<\/h2>\n

The information in these databases is pretty basic: Your wireless router<\/a>\u2018s MAC address and its physical location. Some other data, such as your Wi-Fi network\u2019s SSID (name), may also appear in the database.<\/p>\n

A MAC address<\/a>, also known as a Media Access Control address, is designed to be unique. It\u2019s generally possible to change your router\u2019s MAC address by going through its web interface, but most people don\u2019t. A MAC address will look something like \u201ca1:2b:c3:4d:56:78\u201d.<\/p>\n

These are more unique identifiers than just a Wi-Fi network\u2019s name. For example, there may be a lot of Wi-Fi networks in the world that have the same name as yours. But your Wi-Fi router\u2019s MAC address is probably unique.<\/p>\n

Importantly, this address is tied to a physical location in the real world in each company\u2019s database.<\/p>\n

These companies promise that it\u2019s just data about your Wi-Fi access point that is being collected. They\u2019re not collecting your browsing activity.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> Google settled a lawsuit<\/a> for using Street View trucks to collect browsing and other traffic data from Wi-Fi networks. It\u2019s worth noting that Google promised to delete the data, and this was many years ago. Hoovering up this data is something that wouldn\u2019t be possible with modern Wi-Fi encryption<\/a>, anyway. Be sure your Wi-Fi network is securely encrypted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How It\u2019s Used<\/h2>\n

The database is used to triangulate your location. How it works is actually pretty simple.<\/p>\n

When it needs to find your location, your smartphone, laptop, or tablet scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks. It then uploads a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks along with their MAC addresses and signal strengths<\/a> to the platform holder\u2019s location services system.<\/p>\n

That big database has a pretty comprehensive list of nearly all the Wi-Fi networks in the world and their physical locations. It can match that list of Wi-Fi networks<\/a> (or rather, their MAC addresses) to a location in the real world.<\/p>\n

And, like GPS, it can use triangulation to determine your location more specifically. Since it knows the fairly precise locations of each Wi-Fi access point, it can use their relative signal strengths to determine its likely physical location.<\/p>\n

For example, if you have a strong signal from one Wi-Fi access point, you must be near it. If you have a weaker signal from another Wi-Fi access point, you must be farther away from it. Repeat this a few times and you can get a pretty accurate determination of your device\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

This lookup process is often faster than using GPS to get a lock on your location. Your device is often using both, however. Devices with cellular connectivity will also use triangulation with cell tower locations to determine your location, too.<\/p>\n

Where Does the Wi-Fi Data Come From?<\/h2>\n
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So where did these big databases come from? Who uploaded it in the first place? Well, you did\u2014you and people like you. It\u2019s crowdsourced.<\/p>\n

As part of the location services lookup process, your device uploads that list of nearby Wi-Fi network details to the company\u2019s database. Let\u2019s say there are no matches because no one has ever had an iPhone around these routers ever before. No big deal\u2014your device waits to get a GPS signal (or triangulates its location via cell tower positions.) Now that your device knows its location, it can send that location to the database. The database now knows where those Wi-Fi networks are.<\/p>\n

This is happening all the time as people use their devices. Using the location services database is a two-way process where the device reports GPS data back to the database along with the nearby Wi-Fi details. That data is fed into the database to make the location determinations more accurate.<\/p>\n

In the early days, these databases were built in other ways\u2014Google famously captured Wi-Fi data as its Street View cars were driving around. However, now that we\u2019re all walking around carrying portable devices that can capture this data, that\u2019s no longer necessary.<\/p>\n

How to Remove It (If You Want)<\/h2>\n

You can opt-out in many different ways. For one thing, you can disable location services and your devices won\u2019t use the Wi-Fi database or upload data to it. They\u2019ll just use GPS or cell tower information to find your location, if available.<\/p>\n

Warning:<\/strong> Disabling location services means location lookups will be slower, and it means devices that just have Wi-Fi\u2014like laptop computers\u2014won\u2019t be able to determine your precise location anymore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can also demand these companies remove your Wi-Fi network details from their databases. There are several ways to do this:<\/p>\n