Wiktionary

geofence

English edit

WOTD – 30 May 2018

Etymology edit

 
A map showing two geofence zones defined in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA, by a global positioning system application

geo- +‎ fence.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

geofence (plural geofences)

  1. (computing) A virtual perimeter around a geographic area, typically enforced by monitoring the positions of trackable mobile devices inside or outside the area, and determining if they cross the "fence".
    • 1986, PC Magazine: The Independent Guide to IBM-standard Personal Computing, volume 23, New York, N.Y.: PC Communications Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82, column 2:
      To make the location data more useful to its customers, uLocate has developed some enhancements. For instance, users can set up "geofences" around specific locations; when a phone enters or leaves that area, an alert is triggered. This could be used to let parents know, by e-mail or SMS, when a child reaches school.
    • 2009, Mark J. Lacy, “Designing Security: Control Society and MoMA’s SAFE: Design Takes on Risk”, in François Debrix, Mark J. Lacy, editors, The Geopolitics of American Insecurity: Terror, Power and Foreign Policy (PRIO New Security Studies), Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 101:
      A company like PetsMobility produces the "PetsCell," a "revolutionary waterproof A-GPS CDMA cell phone for your Pet" (as the company puts it). PetsMobility declares that / there's no hiding with the PetsCell™. […] Establish a remote programmable geofence around a yard or campus, and use handy notification features that alert your cell phone when a breach occurs.
    • 2011, Chuck Martin, The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile, Boston, Mass.: Nicholas Brealey, →ISBN, page 144:
      A geofence could be a mile or more around a store or it could be fifty feet from the front door, whatever the business decides.
    • 2013, Dan Burges, “In-transit Security”, in Cargo Theft, Loss Prevention, and Supply Chain Security, Waltham, Mass., Kidlington, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, →ISBN, page 207:
      In the event that the secured lot and locking systems emplaced fail to keep a load from being stolen, by emplacing a geofence (or electronic boundary) around the stationary load, the user or a control center can be notified immediately when the load begins to move and crosses the electronic boundary, which allows for an immediate response protocol, which can enhance the chances for recovery exponentially.

Alternative forms edit

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

Verb edit

geofence (third-person singular simple present geofences, present participle geofencing, simple past and past participle geofenced)

  1. (transitive, computing) To provide a geofence around (an area).
    • 2015, Martin O'Hanlon, David Whale, “Adventure 10: The Minecraft Lift”, in Adventures in Minecraft, Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page BC20:
      In this adventure you have built the hardware and software for a fully functional passenger lift, just like the lifts inside real buildings. By doing this, you have used many of the skills you learnt by working through all of the adventures in this book, including sensing the players' position, geo-fencing the lift shaft, moving the player, building blocks automatically, sensing when a block has been hit, interfacing with electronic circuits, using Python lists, developing and testing a program one step at a time, and many more amazing things!
    • 2017 April 23, Andrew Liptak, “Uber tried to fool Apple and got caught: Uber geofenced Apple’s Cupertino headquarters to hide that it was tracking iPhones”, in The Verge‎[1], archived from the original on 12 February 2018:
      The practice, called fingerprinting, is prohibited by Apple. To prevent the company from discovering the practice, Uber geofenced Apple headquarters in Cupertino, changing its code so that it would be hidden from Apple Employees.
    • 2018, Dawn Dunkerley, CompTIA Security+ Exam SY0-501 (Mike Meyers’ Certification Passport), 5th edition, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Education, →ISBN, page 414:
      In this case, you could use the GPS to "geo-fence" the area, and implement access control measures that track where devices are located within the facility, alerting you when mobile devices enter unapproved areas.
    • 2022 October 26, Cade Metz, Adam Satariano, Chang Che, “How Elon Musk Became a Geopolitical Chaos Agent”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN:
      Two of them said this was because Mr. Musk had “geofenced” the service so that it was available only in certain areas.

Translations edit

Further reading edit

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