In the world of technology, tracking is not a strenuous task, which will require meticulous efforts. Geo-fencing is one of the technology blessings we are working with. But what is this geo-fencing, how has it developed, in what ways it works, how is it useful and where is it used? Let’s discuss all these answers one by one via this article.
GEO-FENCING
In the word Geo-fencing, the Prefix “Geo” is a Greek word meaning “earth or land” and “fencing” means “drawing an imaginary border” Thus, Geo-fencing defines as setting up fencing or a virtual perimeter boundary to know whenever an object enters within the marked fencing zone.
As the definition explained above, defines Geo-fencing technology as a location-based service (LBS). In this, the app or any other medium by which the service is in use depends on GPS (Global Positioning System), Wi-Fi or cellular data and RFID(Radio-Frequency Identification) to activate the organized action which is based on whenever a device enters or exits the set virtual boundary locations or Geo-fence. The alert can be sent in many ways set up by the developer, it can be in a trigger form of text, pop-up, push notifications, track alert messages etcetera.
How the Geofencing Work?
The developer set up the virtual boundary using GPS or RFID services or even an IP address in some cases to set up the fencing zone and then set up a per-planned alert system for the device which is going to enter or exit from the fencing zone. As soon as you enter the fence, will be tracked by the developer in case of tracking; you will get a push notification, if the fencing is set up for some marketing or business deals, you will get a message if the fencing is set up for any other purposes related to work personal or professional. So, therefore we can say that Geo-fencing has made life easy for everyone except those who are in the adversary zone. The fence in the Geo-fencing can vary in the perimeter zone, i.e., they can be changed, reduced or increased depending upon the user and developer.
Example: If you are running a salon and you want the customers in closer proximity to your location to know about the venue, you can set up the fencing perimeter and send the alerts in whatever format you want to give.
Geo-fencing Application
In this era of digitization, Geo-fencing has become a crucial way for every sector whether it is a public or private one; whether it is in the security zone or marketing world; whether it is in IT or business firms. Once geographic fencing is set, the opportunities and usage are seemingly endless and that’s one of the reasons that it has become especially popular in marketing and social media lines.
Some of the common Geo-fencing Applications are as follows:
Security: Geo-fencing can be used to make your devices more secure. Like you can set your own Geo-fencing for your device for a specific area like your home, to get push-up notifications whenever someone enters your home.
Social networking: With Geo-fencing development comes its usage in one of the most popular platforms of the last decade called social media. Geo-fencing is the social media app network that gives the application of location status, location sending, and location-based stories to other devices and all these are all made possible with Geo-fencing.
Human resources: For fencing the on-field employees, and workers and to track the employees, companies nowadays use Geo-fencing to keep a record of employees. Geo-fencing is also useful as a way to automate time cards, employee clocking means keeping track of when they go in and out, within the premises.
Marketing: Geo-fencing is a popular way for business firms to promote themselves by an alert pop-up whenever you are within the fencing range of the company. One of the best use of Geo-fencing is that it helps businesses in targeted ads to a specific audience instead of mass-adherence to figure out the right set of strategies with the right set of people based on the user’s location data.
Telematics: Telematics, the process of merging telecommunications and informatics via any device- Geo-fencing plays a very useful role here as well by allowing companies to set virtual zones around sites, work premises and secure zones.
Smart appliances: Smart appliances have made us enter the smart world and Geo-fencing is one of the smartest use of these smart appliances With the capability of smart work of appliances, it’s easier than ever before like reminding you of some household chores, reminding you some office-related files, kids assignments and all.
The use of Geo-fencing in handling Pandemic COVID19:
When the entire nation is struggling for survival from the pandemic coronavirus, people in technology are working to tackle this problem via the use of technology. Developers from different zones of the country have developed a geo-fencing-based app for COVID-19 to track the people who are on the fence about getting affected by the Coronavirus.
Ministry of Electronics and information technology (MEITY)-GOI has developed an app called ‘AAROGYA SETU’ for citizens to know the risk of contracting COVID-19 by Geo-fencing tracking service. The tracking is done via Bluetooth & location-generated social graphs, which can show your interaction with anyone who has tested positive-All you have to do after the installation is to switch on the Bluetooth and location. By switching on the following you will be in the line of sight of developers and once you crossed paths with the red zone area you will get an alert message based on the information. Thus, Geo-fencing is playing a crucial role in handling this pandemic.
Geo-fencing Future
In this world of data-privacy where everyone is concerned about their data getting stolen, Geo-fencing faces the same criticism of possibilities of a data breach but as said by Nasscom chief R. Chandrasekhar, ‘There is nothing called fully perfect security in IT’, thus we can’t play the data-breach game with Geo-fencing anymore. According to a press release from Markets and Markets (https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/), the Geo-fencing industry is expected to grow by over 27% by 2022, citing “technological advancements in the use of spatial data and increasing applications in numerous industry verticals.”
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