Looking at the logs, I have recognized the IP addresses of people that I know. However, the GEO tracking information provided is not correct. What could be the issue?
GEO IP information provided on logs is not targeted to reveal an exact IP address map location. The associated IP address geographical location is provided by the holding ISP providers. They regularly update IP address allocations that are the subject of laws that govern the release of an exact IP address’s physical street address location.
The reported IP address map locations are mostly the distribution network locations that can be as close as a mile from an exact location or significantly farther. This occurs due to the following factors:
- IP addresses are rarely permanently assigned to an individual user. Therefore ISP providers do not associate an exact location to an IP address, but rather a general network location
- Mobile networks’ IP hops from tower to tower are frequently occurring and the available pool of IP addresses is rather large, which often includes interstate segments. This means that a mobile device can be assigned an IP address that could be registered as hundreds if not thousands of miles away
- An IP address database can lapse an update and for a short while would not have updated data. This would result in the visitor tracker temporarily showing incorrect GEO locations due to a recent IP address database update
- A certain range of IP addresses are reserved addresses for which GEO location tokens are not frequently updated or not updated at all after the initial assignment
If for any reason an exact IP address location is required, only with a police warrant and an appropriate legal procure it is possible to acquire a specific IP address’s personal identification data that has occurred at a specific date and time. All private information otherwise is protected by the local applicable laws.
See the following resource for more information on how IP address location works.