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Posted by nicklockey 3 years 9 weeks ago

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 nicklockey
mobiForge Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: 3 years ago
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Hi

I'm not a techie so sorry in advance if this is a dumb question.

I have an idea for a service that I'd like to develop which involves
posting photos on a google map that users have taken in specific
geographic locations.

To keep the technological barrier to entry low, I'd like them to be
able to send these via MMS message from their mobile camera phones -
is there any way to automatically determine the location in which
their MMS/ SMS was taken without the user needing to fill in location
details (cell tower triangulation maybe?).

I know it is possible for the user to do this to determine their own location but can we do it
at our end when we receive their MMS so we can plot it on a map?

If so, does anyone have any idea of the locational accuracy we might
get or potential legal problems we might run in to?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Nick

Posted by ruadhan 3 years ago

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 ruadhan
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Mobile Champion
Posts: 710
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nicklockey wrote:

I know it is possible for the user to do this to determine their own location but can we do it
at our end when we receive their MMS so we can plot it on a map?

You should be able to get the CellIDs of nearby cells from the device, and send this information to your server along with the image, then you could use an open source database of cell locations, like OpenCellID (see these articles). You can also buy cell data solutions such as Navizon, which will probably have more accuracy than the open source solutions.

There are also solutions like Gurfl that will identify the network operator based on IP address, though this probably wouldn't be accurate enough for what you want to do.

In terms of the legality - most location aware apps that I've used normally require the user to explicitly allow the app to make use of the device location at least once per session, for example by displaying a pop-up with message "Application would like to use your current location: Allow or disallow?". So technically I suppose it's opt-in... (I'm not a lawyer of course, so I've no idea how well that would stand up in court!)

Ruadhan O'Donoghue
dotMobi

Posted by marekg 3 years ago

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 marekg
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Posts: 3
Joined: 5 years ago
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Of course you can do it on your own, but in case you wanted to use free service doing quite close what you describe, please take a look: www.buddyway.com