GPS is short for Global Positioning System. The GPS system uses a series of satellites to track pinpoint locations of subjects anywhere on or near the Earth. Originally developed in the 1970s for military purposes, personal GPS technology has grown exponentially over the last fifteen years. Almost every, if not all smartphones and tablets manufactured today contain a GPS receiver chip.
For digital forensic examiners, access to GPS data from smartphones or standalone navigation units allow us to not only determine where use of the device occurred, but at what time, helping us corroborate time sensitive evidence. This information can also be compared against cell tower and WiFi triangulation to provide more accurate geolocation placement.
Google’s Location History tool lets you see where Google has tracked you for spans of up to 30 days. You can even retrace your steps with the time-stamped playback feature. This is only a small approximation of the kinds of granular data mobile forensics examiners can recover.
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