GPS-free location fixes should be possible using only cell and wifi data

[crankycoder]

I'd like to be able to support gps-free location fixes where all data is simply on the device.

There are privacy issues here that need to be resolved, but I think this is a very compelling feature.

The particular privacy problem we want to solve is to make it reasonably difficult for someone to find the location of a particular wifi router based on knowing that single router BSSID.

[sshvetsov]

I'm a bit confused, isn't geolocation with just the wifi SSID already possible via MLS API? This pretty much gives you the location of the router.

If you want to make it harder to locate a specific router, the API has to require more than just SSID. For example, the correct neearby cell must be provided as well, and only if the provided SSID is located within reasonable range from the provided cell, then the higher accuracy location is returned.

This will have negative implications on location accuracy though, so I doubt you can avoid the privacy issue in the context of this service.

[lua86]

I don't get why is this an issue. If I don't opt-out is because I don't think where in my house is my access point is a privacy matter.

[crankycoder]

To clarify, this feature would enable location fixes based completely data local to the device without ichnaea or gps.