Companies across India are grappling with a new wave of digital deception, as background verification firms and corporate forensic teams report a sharp increase in cases of location spoofing. This trend is particularly noticeable among hybrid employees and gig economy workers, who are allegedly misrepresenting their actual place of work.
How Employees Are Faking Their Work Location
Investigations have uncovered that some individuals are using sophisticated methods like travel routers or similar devices to mask their true geographic coordinates. These tools make it appear as if the employee is logging in from their designated base location, such as a major city, while they are actually operating from a completely different region or even another country.
A stark example emerged from a social media post on Reddit, where an employee at a multinational corporation shared his experience. The individual stated he was terminated after the company discovered he was working remotely from his home country in South Asia during a family emergency, while his digital footprint falsely indicated he was in the United States. He achieved this by using a travel router configured with a cloud-based server.
According to the post, an internal investigator interviewed the employee, leading to his dismissal for violating the company's business conduct guidelines by concealing his true work location.
Corporate Systems Are Watching
Amit Rahane, Partner at EY's Forensic and Integrity Services, emphasized that location spoofing is a concrete problem, not a theoretical risk. He explained that companies are detecting these cases through routine compliance audits, security reviews, and client checks, rather than active, real-time surveillance.
"Many employees underestimate how much data is captured," Rahane said. "Several controls were introduced during Covid to monitor moonlighting—such as IP tracking and login analytics—and these systems remain in place. As a result, location inconsistencies are often detected even without targeted monitoring."
He added that while VPN tools have become more advanced, corporate systems analyze a broader set of patterns. Login behavior, device fingerprints, and usage anomalies can still expose spoofing attempts, making the practice less foolproof than employees might assume.
The Gig Economy and Fraud Prevention
The issue extends beyond traditional office workers to the vast gig economy. Ashok Hariharan, Co-founder and CEO of the identity verification platform Idfy, outlined several scenarios companies are trying to prevent.
First, platforms need to verify if a delivery worker actually went to a customer's address. Second, there are cases where a gig worker hands their phone to someone else to complete tasks. To counter this, companies deploy face-matching tools alongside location data. Third, some misuse apps to falsely show delivery attempts while the phone remains stationary, creating a fraud risk since workers are sometimes paid for attempts.
"Location spoofing can be identified by combining IP and VPN intelligence with GPS-based checks," Hariharan stated. "Monitoring these geographic and temporal signals enables authorities to anticipate where financial crime is likely to emerge next and intervene proactively."
He detailed that the detection process involves validating GPS and sensor data, identifying rogue apps that manipulate location, detecting VPN usage through latency and traffic patterns, and analyzing device biometrics—a largely data science-driven approach.
How Companies Detect the Discrepancies
Due to privacy concerns, most organizations avoid constant active surveillance. Detection typically happens during periodic security audits, compliance checks, or client reviews. Forensic teams then analyze a range of controls, including:
- Geo-fencing parameters
- Two-factor authentication logs
- Attendance and login records
- IP geolocation data
- Wi-Fi network SSIDs
- Frequent or impossible location jumps
- Unusual login times
The consensus among experts is clear: as remote and hybrid work models solidify, the technological battle between location masking and corporate compliance systems is intensifying. Employees attempting to spoof their location are facing higher risks of exposure through routine digital audits.
