Understanding Edge DX Agent’s Location Data Accuracy and Privacy Concerns for ControlUp Users

Location data from Edge DX agent seems to be inconsistent, with devices reporting in different locations than their physical location. It was suggested that the agent uses the WAN IP, provided by the ISP, which can be inaccurate. Some users suggest enabling location services on the endpoint for more accurate data. However, there may be privacy concerns with this feature. ControlUp’s support site provides information on how to customize locations based on IP ranges.

Read the entire ‘Understanding Edge DX Agent’s Location Data Accuracy and Privacy Concerns for ControlUp Users’ thread below:

Does anyone know where the Edge DX agent is pulling location data from? We are seeing some very inconsistent location data. We have a device that is located in our Temecula branch office but the Edge DX agent is reporting it in North Hollywood. Not very helpful.

I believe it uses your WAN IP and this can be very inaccurate depending on your ISP.

That doesn’t make sense. North Hollywood is 100 miles from Temecula.

i see the same thing. we have 3 ISPs and depending on which one you are routed out, you can show 50+ miles from your physical location. I have Edge DX on a home PC and that IP is always within 30′ of my house/

https://support.controlup.com/docs/device-geolocation

In short, hover over the location pin in your screenshot to see the source of that location

There’s no real way to guarantee the accuracy of the location for either source since they are external. But we do have options for you to customize the locations based on IP ranges. For example, if you know the IP range for devices in a certain office, you can force all of those devices to appear in the office location, regardless of what Windows/Mac location services or your ISP thinks the location is

With this data metric being so inaccurate, what is the use case for it? New Edge DX Admin; deployed 1200 agents last month; trying to help the other Edge DX Admins understand the product and get the most benefit from it.

from my most accurate Device:

my lease accurate device:

Most of the time it is accurate. Personally all my devices are very accurate. If location services is enabled on my laptop then it knows what house I’m in. Using my ISP it gets within 1-2 kilometers

So we can get accurate location data if we enable location services on our endpoints? Was not even aware of that service. I manage VMs mostly, not physical endpoints.

If location services is enabled on the endpoint (in the OS settings), then it will use it since it is almost always more accurate than the ISP location

Sweet! I’ll pass that along to our IT Security Team. They are the ones wanting to leverage location. Thank, Timothy!

No problem! And if there are privacy concerns about location, you can also choose to never see the location reported from Location Services, since some people don’t want to (or aren’t allowed) to see which house your employees are in

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