Can my employer see my exact location?

VPN
1

I hugely apologize for sounding like a complete idiot but I know close to nothing about VPNs and IP addresses. I am reaching out to you tech savvy redditors since I’m lost.

I work from home with my personal device and use my companies VPN to sign into their network.

My company has a policy that you have to work from your home and if you move you have to submit that information to corporate immediately.

If I was to work from, say, a house down the road would my company know I was doing that?

I assume that my company can see my location through my IP address, right? If that is the case, is it common practise for companies to track that?

Mostly asking out of curiosity since I wouldnt want to break the rules but my family wanted me to work at their house over the holidays.

Thank you.

2

I don’t know the answer to this, but:

Does your workplace also own your device (laptop, tablet, etc)? If so, I think they could easily have installed a GPS tracker on it. So even if they can’t track through the VPN, they might be able to track in other ways. Maybe someone else here knows more…

3

I work from home with my personal device and use my companies VPN to sign into their network.

They will know exactly where you are (what your public IP is and Geographic location) and exactly what you access when you’re connected to their VPN.

4

Unless you have a static IP at home, assigned to you by your ISP (most people don’t unless they request one), they wouldn’t know. As said, info is not street level. If you are just down the street it’s nothing to worry about.

5

If the house down the road has the same ISP as you, chances are your IP address will be similar and therefore, they probably won’t question you or notice.

6

I think company VPNs determine your location by your IP address, which is not very accurate.

7

No, these informations are not street level accurate. So no worries.

8

Here are a few facts that I have found out…

Employers can track the location of employees using work devices, even when working remotely through a VPN.

Tracking methods and capabilities include monitoring login/logout times, IP address, device type, data transmitted, and potentially even screen activity.

Personal VPNs primarily encrypt internet connections, protecting IP addresses and browser history, but employers can still determine the real location through other methods.

User fingerprinting is a tracking method that collects device information to create a unique profile, allowing employers to track activities across devices and locations, even if a personal VPN is used.

Using a VPN does not guarantee that employers cannot track the location.

Company-issued laptops may have tracking capabilities that allow employers to monitor GPS locations.

Employers can monitor online activities and track location based on the assigned IP address, even when connected through a company VPN.

Some companies require employees to use specific VPN services, giving employers control over the VPN infrastructure and the ability to track users’ locations.

If location services are enabled on company-owned devices or with user permission, employers can track physical location through GPS technology.

Emploers can track location through IP address tracking while connected to a VPN.

Company laptops may have software installed to track browsing history and monitor visited websites.

Employers can use GPS location tracking on company-owned and personal devices.

Wi-Fi tracking through MAC addresses and known Wi-Fi network locations is another method employers can use.

Using a consumer VPN on personal devices may offer some privacy protection, but it may violate company policies.

9

If you are on the same street there is no issue as your traffic will likely take the same route as when you are at home, to see what path it takes you can perform what is called a traceroute from your computer to your work place IP (or a place close to your workplace).

But lets say that you are traveling… you could have a machine at your house that is always on. You could then connect to that computer remotely via a point to point VPN (i.e. wireguard, openvpn, etc…), once logged in you’d log in to your work VPN as needed and your employer would not know that you are away - the setup isn’t too hard either, many guides are available online on how to roll your own VPN. It’s a little extra work, and you’ll have to make arrangements to ensure that the computer doesn’t power off during a power outage, but it’d work.

10

Your employer can tell your IP address from their VPN logs. If you are working from down the street, they won’t know because the IP address just identifies basically the city and provider, i.e., “Comcast in Springfield, OR”. Your IP address can change because it is assigned dynamically, so there is nothing suspicious about switching to a different address in the same city, it doesn’t really indicate whether you physically moved vs. rebooting your router and getting a new address assigned.

The more important question to ask is why does your employer cares? The general answer is taxes. Your employer has to pay taxes to the state that you are working in, so if you move from Oregon to Washington, they’d have to stop paying one state and start paying the other. They may not already file taxes in the new state, so don’t want to have to deal with that hassle, or they may have some tax abatement for their promise to bring new jobs to Oregon that you’d be messing up. Or they may have contractual requirements for government work, to staff the contract in the state it was issued from. Without knowing the intent of the employer’s requirement, it’s hard to say, but working from your mom’s house down the street isn’t going to affect state tax issues.

I also couldn’t see any reason not to “submit that information to corporate immediately” in whatever format they want, hopefully just an email to your manager, to let them know that you will be working from your mom’s house and no worries you have a perfect work environment because your mom has kept your old bedroom as it was the day you graduated high school, or whatever… :slight_smile:

11

Bro, you can use browserleaks.com to check where you are. I think your company tracks you by knowing your ip address and geolocation api…

12

I doubt they are asking this out of any draconian big brother reasons. Some companies put geofences around VPN connections so if you try to connect from say New York when you usually work in Minnesota that would be flagged in the system as a potential security breech from someone who has compromised your credentials.

13

An IP address will generally give little more than a vague location so if you are in broadly the same area it is unlikely that your IP will give you away; if you are in another town/city/country then it may be more likely to pick up location from the IP.

It is possible that your employer enrolled your personal device on the network or has installed a security certificate, perhaps if you signed into Outlook for example. If your employer has done something like this then they may be able to collect more accurate data on your activities.

Companies could put clauses such as this in for insurance reasons or to ensure that none of the data being sent/received is in a legal jurisdiction that they are not comfortable with.

14

No, it is a personal device.

15

Thank you for the response :slight_smile: how large is the area that they COULD track? I only really just thought about how much my job is monitoring me. I’m reading a bunch of posts so I’m more knowledgeable.

16

I don’t want to give you the wrong info so this is just based on my experience, but personally, websites will show my location as several miles from where I am, but still within the same town.

17

Interesting! I will try to google more but it’s a little over my head lol

18

google “what is my IP” or what is my location and it’ll give you an idea of how closely an IP is tied to physical location.