How is the accuracy of user location affected if geoip location service is turned off?

General questions
1

I have a few questions on the geolocation service.

  1. If I install the paid version of DBIP / GeoIP 2 (Php) or DBIP / GeoIP 2 (HTTP Server Module) databases, will Matomo make calls to a third party service to get the geo data?
  2. If the answer is yes, what data is sent to the third party service? Just the IP or some more data?
  3. Suppose I do not want Matomo to make external calls for the geolocation service. How much accuracy will be affected? Are there any alternatives?

We handle a lot of PII data at work, that is what prompted the questions above. Any help is appreciated!

2

Hi,

Geolocation in Matomo either works by querying the local database (no matter if free or paid or DBIP or Maxmind) or by taking the data your Webserver forwards (HTTP Server Module).

There are a few more plugins on the marketplace that implement other methods, some of which work by sending the IP to the third-party-API to get the data.

3

Thank you. Does this mean if I do not use the HTTP server module, no calls are made outside the server?

4

Hi,

If you use the HTTP server module Matomo simply trusts the geolocation data your webserver adds to the requests. How your webserver creates this data and if it makes external requests for the geolocation depends on your webserver (config).