Geolocation

Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other. Geolocation may refer to the practice of assessing the location, or to the actual assessed location, or to locational data.

Geolocation can be performed by associating a geographic location with the Internet Protocol (IP) address, MAC address, RFID, hardware embedded article/production number, embedded software number (such as UUID, Exif/IPTC/XMP or modern steganography), invoice, Wi-Fi connection location, or device GPS coordinates, or other, perhaps self-disclosed information. Geolocation usually works by automatically looking up an IP address on a WHOIS service and retrieving the registrant's physical address.

The word geolocation is also used in other contexts to refer to the process of inferring the location of a tracked animal based, for instance, on the time history of sunlight brightness or the water temperature and depth measured by an instrument attached to the animal. Such instruments are commonly called archival tags or dataloggers.