What is Location Data & How to Use it?

Hi there. It's Lewis from Datarade, welcome to Data Explained.

Well, our topic for today, location data, can help with all this and more.

So just to give you a quick definition to get started. Location data is information about the geographical position of devices or structures. In contrast to its cousin, point of interest data, which is all about static locations or objects; location data is more about things that can be static, but also things that move.

Looking at some of the common data attributes. It's basically anything that can tell us an exact location at an exact time. We've got longitude and latitude, which are also generally helped by a technique called horizontal accuracy.

Altitude and elevation can tell you the height above or below sea level. Timestamps can help with establishing a broader context, looking at movement over time. Now, IP addresses and identifiers are generally things that help facilitate the collection, or the use of location data. Simply put, they are linking a number to a device or signal to help identify the specific customer's data or behavior. So an IP address will come from a Wi-Fi network and identifiers come from mobile phones.

That gives us an idea of where this data can be collected from: all the technology that we interact with on a daily basis. This could be a phone, laptop, or a tablet, and these collect information using a location signal.

This could be a Wi-Fi signal. Wi-Fi signals are generally used indoors. They can be very precise and accurate, but their biggest drawback is that they find it difficult to track continuously moving objects.

This is why we have GPS. It generally functions best outdoors, but it can work indoors as well. It's accurate to about a 4.9 meter radius, which is pretty good considering that the signal comes from a satellite beaming down. However, the biggest drawback for this is that because the signal comes from so far away, if you go into an area where the signal might get interrupted, be that underground, in a tunnel, or even in a big shopping centre or a building with many floor, the signal can become quite unreliable.

To the different use cases for location data;
In terms of finance, we've got things that can make predictions that could be KPIs, business growth, or customer acquisition.

For insurance, this could be looking at validating and verifying the specific details of an insurance claim.

Retail investors also make great use of location data. This could be done mostly for property evaluations, looking at footfall traffic, how many people live in an area, what the general automobile traffic is like and how businesses are performing in the area. Generally things that location data can help real estate investors to provide.

Smart cities. This is how the government uses your location data. Surprise there. Governments tend to track movements of neighbourhoods by looking at mobile phone signals. The biggest use for this is to help improve the city. Where can public facilities be located? Park schools or public toilets?

Now, footfall traffic is probably the goldmine of location data. Retailers wanted to know where the best location would be for their store on the high street.

And finally, geofencing and targeted advertising. So, geofencing is when the data collector will pinpoint a place, be that your location or store's location and create an artificial boundary around it.When you cross this boundary, you will get a notification or an email alert that will then draw your attention to whatever this advertiser wants you to know.

Some things to consider before buying:
First of all, consent. Whenever you're dealing with any sort of really personal data, it's very important to make sure that it was collected according to the right rules and regulations. The GDPR in Europe or the recently introduced CCPA in California allow individuals more control over their data, which means that you need to know how your provider collects the data and what it's used for to ensure that when it was collected, it was done so using these guidelines.