Facebook Files Patent To Calculate Your Location - In The Future

Facebook has filed several patent applications for technology with the USPTO which would use your location data to predict where you're going to go next, as well as when you'll be offline, reports BuzzFeed's Nicole Nguyen.

Facebook's response when asked about the applications was essentially: "we file patents on tons of stuff we never actually implement."

"We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patent applications — such as this one — should not be taken as an indication of future plans," said company spokesperson Anthony Harrison.

As BuzzFeed's Nguyen points out, however, the patent applications themselves indicate that Facebook, in general, is interested in tracking and prediction of users and their habits.

A May 30, 2017, Facebook application titled “Offline Trajectories” describes a method to predict where you’ll go next based on your location data. The technology described in the patent would calculate a “transition probability based at least in part on previously logged location data associated with a plurality of users who were at the current location.” In other words, the technology could also use the data of other people you know, as well as that of strangers, to make predictions.

If the company could predict when you are about to be in an offline area, Facebook content “may be prefetched so that the user may have access to content during the period where there is a lack of connectivity.” -BuzzFeed

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