Search code examples
androidiosgpslocationcoordinates

Preventing iOS/Android users from faking their GPS location

I am building both an Android and IOS app that will use a user's GPS location. I am concerned about a user faking a their GPS location as I've heard people doing with Uber.

Is there a programmatic way of preventing or detecting this?

Solution

  • There is pretty much no way to validate the correctness of your GPS readings. However, there are workarounds you could use to detect possible spoofing:

    First, you can detect if they Mock Location setting is on (which is commonly used by GPS faking apps). To do so, lookup Settings.Secure.ALLOW_MOCK_LOCATION) setting and check if it's enabled or not. Then check which apps have that permission (namely android.permission.ACCESS_MOCK_LOCATION). If there are apps present that use that permission and that setting is on, there is a high change they may be faking user's location.

    You could also try to use Location.isFromMockProvider, although I am not sure how accurate the result is. The function returns true if the location you're checking has been acquired through a GPS faking app.