Fake GPS in attendance and site photos: catch it fairly

How fake locations get in

A fake location is a position a phone reports that it did not get from its own satellite signal. It reaches attendance and photos in a few common ways.

• A mock-location app: on Android, an app can feed a chosen position to other apps. The phone then reports a place the person is not at.
• A photo from the gallery: an old picture from the right site is sent again as today's proof.
• A typed or edited stamp: some apps let the user type the place and time, or add them after the photo.
• A buddy punch: a friend clocks in for someone else, from the real site, on that person's phone or login.
• Honest drift: the phone is at the site, but the position is wrong. GPS.gov says phone accuracy is about 4.9 metres under open sky and gets worse near buildings, bridges and trees.

The last point matters most for fairness. A wrong position is not always a false one. Keep it in mind through the rest of this post.

Geofence, selfie, photo flag or supervisor visit: which catches what?

Each method checks something different. Read the lists as what it stops, what it misses and what you need.

Geofence

A geofence is a virtual boundary drawn around a site.

• What it stops: clock-ins from home, from a tea stall, or from another site.
• What it misses: a mock-location app that reports a point inside the boundary. It also misses honest drift near the edge.
• What you need: the site's position and a radius that allows for GPS error.

Selfie at clock-in

• What it stops: a buddy punch, because a face is attached to each entry.
• What it misses: a selfie taken somewhere else with a faked position. A selfie does not prove place by itself.
• What you need: a clear rule that the selfie is taken on site, and someone to look at odd ones.

A fake-GPS flag on the photo

• What it stops: the quiet use of a mock location for site photos, because the flag shows on the photo and the report.
• What it misses: a person who is present but did the wrong work, and a fake that the phone does not reveal.
• What you need: capture inside an app that flags it, with no gallery to pull from.

A supervisor visit

• What it stops: almost everything, for that hour and that site.
• What it misses: every other site and every other day. It is slow and does not scale.
• What you need: a supervisor with travel time, and a reason to go.

What works better than any one of them

Pair a method that checks the place with one that checks the person.

• Attendance: geofence plus selfie. The geofence checks place; the selfie checks who is there.
• Site proof: live capture plus a fake-GPS flag. The camera checks that the photo is new; the flag checks the position.
• Follow-up: a supervisor visit or a phone call, only when something is flagged.

If you have one site and five people, a supervisor and a muster roll may be enough. If you have thirty sites and a client who asks for proof, you need something that records evidence as it happens. Our post on the best GPS camera app for site photos compares options for the photo side.

How Verafii flags a fake location

Verafii takes photos and video only from its own camera. There is no gallery and no file picker, and the app never asks for photo-library access. That removes the old-picture route.

Every photo gets the GPS and time burned into the image at the shutter. On Android and iPhone, a photo taken with a fake location is flagged. The flag shows on the photo, the report, the verify page and the dashboard.

What this means in practice:

• A manager sees the flag on the dashboard without opening each report.
• A client who scans the QR on the report sees the same flag on the verify page.
• A SHA-256 fingerprint covers the PDF, every photo and every video, so a changed file no longer matches.

What it does not do: Verafii flags the photo. It does not block the person, delete anything or decide what the flag means. That decision stays with you. See our post on how to verify a site report for the scan-and-drop check.

Attendance with selfie clock-in and geofenced sites

Attendance is an add-on. It is switched on for a company only when it asks, and it is charged on top of the plan.

With it, crews clock in from site with a selfie. Sites can be geofenced. Managers see hours, geofence status and fake-GPS flags on the web dashboard.

A second add-on, live tracking, is also available on request. It works only between clock-in and clock-out, and only once the customer's admin turns it on. Nothing is tracked outside work hours, and the admin can exempt a person. Tell your crew this before you switch it on.

If you only need proof of work, not attendance, the photo flag alone may be enough. You can ask for a quote with only the features you need.

Set it up in a week

1. Day 1, write the rule. Say what a flag means: it triggers a question, not a penalty. Share it with the crew.
2. Day 2, list your sites. Note each site's position and where the signal is weak, such as basements and tall-building lanes.
3. Day 3, start the trial. Use the 30-day free trial with a small crew on two or three sites.
4. Day 4, brief the crew. Show them live capture, what a flag looks like, and what to do if their phone's location looks wrong.
5. Day 5, run a normal day. Collect photos, then review them on the dashboard.
6. Day 7, review the flags. Ask about each one, note the answer, and adjust site boundaries if drift was the cause.

Be fair to your crew

A flag can come from a cause that is not cheating. Ask first.

• Check accuracy: indoors, in a basement or between tall buildings, a position can be off by many metres.
• Check the pattern: one flag in a month is a question. The same flag on the same days is a stronger reason to talk.
• Ask in private: give the person a chance to explain. Phones are shared, replaced and repaired.
• Look at the site: a geofence drawn too tight will reject honest people near the edge.
• Be open about tracking: if live tracking is on, tell the crew it runs only between clock-in and clock-out.
• Write it down: note what you asked, what they said and what you decided.

A crew that trusts the process reports a phone problem early. A crew that fears it hides one.

What a flag does not prove

A flag shows that the phone reported a fake location at that moment. It does not show why, or who intended it.

• Intent: a worker may have a mock-location app left from a game or a test.
• Absence: the person may still have been on site.
• Work quality: a clean photo at the right place does not show the work was done well.
• Every fake: no method catches everything, so a clean record is not a guarantee.

Whether a client, department, insurer or court accepts a photo or a report is their decision. Verafii's report shows what was captured, where, when and on which device. The reader draws the conclusion.