- NordVPN has released a new free browser tool
- “My Location” shows your actual location near the virtual location
- The tool aims to help users understand their digital privacy risks
Location data can provide much more than the coffee shop you’re sitting at. It reveals the places you visit frequently, your daily routines, and when you are away from home. Now, to help users understand exactly what data they are transmitting, the team behind one of the best VPN services has released a dedicated test method.
NordVPN has officially launched My Location, a free online tool designed to let you quickly check both your location and the physical location of the websites you visit. Working entirely at the browser level, the tool aims to determine how different types of location data affect your digital privacy.
“Location is one of the most sensitive types of personal information because it can reveal where you are and patterns in your daily life,” said Marijus Briedis, CTO at NordVPN. “Once this data is disclosed or shared more widely, it can be used for profiling, targeting, and other purposes beyond the original reason it was collected.”
Real space versus physical space
One of the main goals of the My Location tool is to educate users about the important differences between their real and virtual locations.
Yours real place identified using device-based methods such as GPS or your browser’s geolocation API, which applications typically use when requesting access to your location.
Yours physical spacehowever, it is based on the IP address attached to your Internet traffic. This is the data that websites automatically rely on to estimate where your connection is coming from.
Why is this difference important? Providing this information can lead to targeted advertising and regional price discrimination, where websites show you different prices based on your location. In more serious cases, time-stamped location history can invite intrusive surveillance or snooping by making it easier to say where you live and track your daily activities.
Using the tool is incredibly straightforward, but there are some steps you should follow to protect your privacy.
When you navigate to the My Location page, you will see a button to check your location. If you’re using Google Chrome, clicking “Explore” will launch a browser alert that asks, “Can I give NordVPN your location?” Along with this warning, Chrome will present three options: “Block,” “Just this time,” or “Always.”
Users must choose “Just this time.” By doing this, you allow the tool to use your browser’s geolocation API to determine your actual location and map it around your physical location based on the IP of that single session. Because you did not grant permanent access, the tool will not automatically activate again, keeping your long-term privacy intact.
Most importantly, you don’t have to worry about the provider keeping tabs on you. NordVPN confirmed that the tool works only at the browser level and “does not log or store any location data revealed through its use.”
How to protect your location data
Besides checking what information is visible, taking effective steps to lock down your data is important.
Briedis recommends a few simple hygiene practices for your devices. You should review your app permissions regularly, making sure you only allow local access while using the app. Additionally, it is highly recommended to disable geotagging in your device’s camera settings and choose privacy-friendly tools wherever possible.
Finally, while a virtual private network (VPN) will not mask GPS-based tracking, it is the best way to protect your virtual footprint. By routing your internet traffic through an encrypted server, a VPN changes the IP address visible to websites, ensuring that your normal browsing activity remains safely hidden.
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