How to detect fake GPS coordinates in Android?

Question

Is there a foolproof way of detecting whether a user is faking his/her GPS location?

The technique should work on android devices with no cellular connectivity hardware. i.e. Wi-Fi only

Answer 1

Try this code if this works for you

// returns true if mock location enabled, false if not enabled.
if (Settings.Secure.getString(getContentResolver(),
   Settings.Secure.ALLOW_MOCK_LOCATION).equals("0")) 
   return false; 
   else return true;

Cheers!

Answer 2

I think you should make the concept of fake GPS coordinate cleaner because by itself any coordinate can be considered genuine whether the user is actually there or not.

You could therefore act in two ways:

1. pull from some other source any information regarding position which you can compare with the GPS coordinates
2. analyze the data you have (the GPS coordinates) for discrepancies.

As it concerns solution 1 you could for instance use the CID (cell id ) and LAC (location area code) of the GSM signal nearest tower to find out whether a user is in a certain area. That would require an internet connection and a request to a remote service for the LAC to GPS coordinates translation.

As for solution 2 you might check for abnormal coordinates changes which are not in line with the user speed or acceleration, for instance a change of several miles in few seconds could warn you about a spoofed coordinate.