Your location is constantly being tracked – but here's why that's a good thing

Location intelligence simply describes the combination of location data, such as GPS with other datasets to create a rich, dynamic image of our world that can be used for countless purposes. Below, are four ways it impacts your daily life without you even realizing it.

Food Delivery

Obvious, right? You’re getting hungry so you open up your go-to food delivery app. 45 minutes later, dinner is on your doorstep.

Location intelligence is essential in allowing meal delivery services to connect you with your food. It may seem simple, but a variety of datasets — delivery area, your exact location, prices, cuisine types, operating hours, arrival time, and more — are layered atop one another to allow you to satisfy your cravings instantly. Not to mention the GPS system your delivery person uses!

(PS - The (food delivery) robots are coming!)

Credit Card Security

Perhaps you don’t realize it, but credit card companies utilize location intelligence to ensure that you are kept safe from fraud.

Consider this scenario: you’re traveling for work and arrive late at night. You use your credit card to book a hotel, but because of the odd location, the card is declined. Credit card companies – aiming to balance security and convenience – use location intelligence to prevent unfortunate outcomes like this. By combining data about your location provided by your cell phone and that of purchase location, they can determine whether the purchase is authentic. Likewise, this also helps them to decipher when purchases far from your area are being made by someone who isn’t you!

Social Media

Anyone who’s searched a geotag to find a restaurant in an unfamiliar area, or has viewed a location-targeted advertisement knows that social media uses location. But beyond looking up addresses, the diversity of applications is surprising (and exciting!)

By using geofencing technology, music festivals and similar outdoor venues can offer time-specific stickers to Snapchat users, allowing them to enhance the digital experience and giving their audience unique online experiences.

Package Delivery

Location intelligence enables delivery services to quickly and easily get packages to your door, but it’s not just about mapping routes.

Shipping companies use incredibly rich location intelligence to ensure that your shipments arrive safely and on time. Weather, weight, road conditions, demographic information, and a variety of other factors are leveraged to get your mail to you. This can entail using geographic analysis to build strategically located processing centers, or it can mean helping mail carriers ensure that their fleets are perfectly serviced.

These are just some of the ways that location intelligence is helping revolutionize the way we live. As technology proliferates, we can be certain that it will be an indispensable part of our daily lives.