How do you verify location without collecting it?

Last reviewed 20 October 2026

You ask the device a yes-or-no question about a region, have it answer and sign that answer on the device, and receive only the verdict, so you can show where a user was relative to a rule without ever holding their coordinates.

Most rules ask a narrow question

A gaming law asks whether the player is in the state. A sanctions rule asks whether the user is outside a list of countries. Neither needs latitude and longitude. Collecting coordinates to answer a yes-or-no question collects far more than the question needs.

European data protection law makes this a principle: personal data must be “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed” (GDPR Article 5(1)(c)).

The rule asks a yes-or-no question, so a yes-or-no answer is all you need to keep.

How it works

• Your app asks a question, such as whether the device is within New Jersey (isWithin) or outside every sanctioned region (isOutside).
• The device answers it locally, from its own sensors and signals.
• The device signs the verdict in secure hardware and returns YES, NO or INDETERMINATE.
• The coordinates stay on the device. They are not part of the proof and do not reach your servers or Octet’s.

What you gain

• Less to protect. No location history in your database to breach, subpoena or misuse.
• Less sensitive data. Precise geolocation is a sensitive category in several U.S. state laws. See what counts as precise geolocation.
• A better record. A signed verdict is evidence an examiner can check, which a raw coordinate is not.

Nothing here is legal advice about any particular law.