What is trusted location

Definition

What is trusted location?

A trusted location is a location result that the party relying on it can check for itself, because it was measured on the device and signed there, rather than reported by software that could have changed it.

Reported location and trusted location

Almost every location an app or website receives is reported. The phone’s operating system says where it is, the browser passes on what it was told, or a server looks up an IP address. Each step is software that can be changed, and the receiver has no way to tell whether it was.

That is enough for showing a map. When the location decides whether a wager is lawful, a payment is released or a login is allowed, the receiver needs to know that nobody altered the answer on the way.

A location is trusted when someone who trusts neither the user nor the vendor can still check it.

What it takes

Measured on the device. From the device’s own sensors, not inferred from the network path. A VPN does not change it. See IP vs device geolocation.
Signed where it was measured. By a key in the device’s secure hardware, with the platform certifying that the hardware and the app are genuine. See device-attested location.
Narrow. An answer to the question that was asked, such as “inside this state, yes or no,” rather than a stream of coordinates.
Verifiable without the vendor. The result verifies offline. If verifying it means asking the vendor, the relying party is trusting the vendor.

Trusted does not mean correct

A trusted location shows that a genuine device, running genuine code, produced a result that was not changed afterwards. It does not show that the sensors and signals were not manipulated. No location method’s correctness is externally audited today, Octet’s included.

What this does not establish

A verdict answers for a device, not a person. It says an enrolled device was inside or outside a region at a time. It does not say who was holding it. Use it alongside identity verification, never instead of it. It does raise the cost of cheating: instead of a VPN subscription, a cheater needs real devices and a person in the permitted place for every transaction.