What is Geofencing?

From Passive Tracking to Active Safety Control

Workplace location technology has evolved significantly over the past two decades. Early systems relied on manual sign-in sheets or radio check-ins, followed by basic GPS logging that created "dots on a map" for retrospective analysis. Second-generation tracking involved active monitoring with supervisors watching screens in control rooms.

Modern geofencing represents a fundamental shift. The system itself detects when workers enter hazardous zones, deviate from approved routes, or fail to exit areas within expected timeframes. This automation reduces reliance on constant human vigilance and enables immediate response to safety events. In high-risk industries like mining and construction, geofencing acts as an invisible digital barrier that can trigger alarms or even automatically inhibit machinery movement when breached.

For Australia's unique geography—characterised by vast distances, remote work sites, and extreme environmental conditions—location awareness has become a critical safety control. The ability to automatically verify a worker's safe arrival or detect deviation from safe routes is particularly vital for lone worker protection in sectors like mining, agriculture, and field services.

How Geofencing Technology Works

A geofencing system consists of three integrated layers working together to create automated safety responses.

The positioning layer determines where a device is located. For outdoor applications, Global Navigation Satellite Systems like GPS receive timing signals from satellites and use trilateration to calculate coordinates. Standard consumer GPS offers accuracy between three and fifteen metres under open sky conditions. However, GPS has limitations in urban canyons where tall buildings reflect signals, and cannot penetrate underground or into heavy buildings.

For indoor environments like warehouses or underground mines, alternative technologies are required. Bluetooth Low Energy beacons can provide one to three metre accuracy for room-level precision. Wi-Fi positioning uses existing access points to achieve five to fifteen metre accuracy. Some facilities use RFID tags at chokepoints to detect workers passing through specific doorways or gates.

The logic layer processes location data and applies business rules. Entry triggers activate when a worker crosses into a defined polygon. Exit triggers respond when someone leaves a boundary. Dwell triggers monitor how long someone remains in a specific zone. These mechanisms enable sophisticated safety controls tailored to different hazards and operational requirements.

The connectivity layer transmits alerts and status updates. In urban and regional areas, cellular networks (4G/5G) handle most communication. However, coverage gaps in remote Australia pose significant challenges. For truly isolated work, satellite networks like Iridium provide global coverage, though with higher costs and potential latency issues that can delay critical alerts by several minutes.

Safety Applications Across Industries

Geofencing serves multiple functions in workplace safety programs, operating at different levels of the hierarchy of controls.

In the mining sector, geofencing has become a mandatory control. Major operators enforce strict standards requiring all vehicles to have In-Vehicle Monitoring Systems with geofencing capabilities. These systems manage contextual speed limits—a vehicle might be limited to 100 km/h on highways but trigger in-cab alarms if exceeding 40 km/h within mine camp geofences. In autonomous mining operations, geofencing creates virtual walls around autonomous vehicle zones, with the entire autonomous fleet entering emergency stop if a manned vehicle breaches the boundary without electronic authorisation.

The Australian Regulatory Context

Implementing geofencing in Australia requires navigating a complex intersection of safety duties and privacy rights. Location data linked to identifiable workers constitutes personal information under the Privacy Act 1988, triggering strict obligations around collection, notification, and use. Collecting location data beyond what is reasonably necessary for safety purposes—such as 24/7 tracking including off-duty time—generally breaches privacy principles.

State-based workplace surveillance legislation adds further requirements. In New South Wales, the Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 requires employers to provide 14 days' written notice before commencing tracking surveillance, detailing the kind of surveillance, methodology, and timing. Vehicles must display signage indicating they are under surveillance. Importantly, it is unlawful to surveil employees when they are not at work unless using employer equipment.

The Australian Capital Territory's Workplace Privacy Act 2011 requires good faith consultation with employees before implementing surveillance. Victoria operates on a consent model rather than notice, requiring express or implied consent for tracking device installation. Other states rely on general surveillance laws and privacy principles.

The "Right to Disconnect" provisions introduced to the Fair Work Act in 2024 create additional considerations. While focused on contact outside working hours, monitoring employees during non-work time via geofencing apps is likely viewed as inconsistent with the right to disconnect, implying workers remain "tethered" to the workplace during personal time.

Geofencing as a Psychosocial Hazard

The 2024 Model Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work represents a significant development in how geofencing must be managed. Safe Work Australia explicitly lists "intrusive surveillance" as a psychosocial hazard that can cause anxiety, stress, and loss of worker autonomy.

Surveillance becomes intrusive when disproportionate to risk, lacking transparency, or used for micromanagement rather than legitimate safety purposes. Tracking bathroom breaks, minor route deviations, or excessive scrutiny of worker movements creates psychological risk. Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBUs) must apply the hierarchy of controls to manage this psychosocial risk—if tracking is necessary for safety, such as lone workers in remote areas, the psychosocial impact must be minimised through strict governance, role-based access limitations, and automatic disabling when workers are safe or off-duty.

Successful implementation requires transparent communication about why geofencing is being used, who has access to location data, and clear policies preventing misuse for disciplinary purposes unrelated to genuine safety breaches. Worker consultation during implementation is not merely good practice but often a legal requirement under workplace surveillance legislation and industrial agreements.

Technical Challenges and Mitigation Strategies

GPS drift represents one of the most common operational challenges. Signal reflection and atmospheric interference can cause stationary devices to appear to jump 20 to 50 metres, potentially triggering false alerts when boundaries are crossed inadvertently. Effective systems incorporate buffer zones around hazards (adding 20 to 30 metres of margin) and implement dwell triggers that only alert if a device remains inside a zone for longer than 30 seconds, filtering transient GPS glitches.

Battery life creates a constant trade-off between safety responsiveness and device usability. Real-time safety requires frequent location updates, which can drain smartphone batteries in hours rather than days. Professional safety systems use adaptive tracking with motion gating—accelerometers detect when workers are stationary and reduce GPS polling to hourly heartbeats, only increasing to two to ten minute intervals when movement is detected. Emergency or SOS modes may poll every 30 seconds for maximum responsiveness.

Connectivity gaps in remote Australia pose fundamental safety risks. A geofence breach detected by a device provides no safety benefit if the alert cannot be transmitted to supervisors. Systems designed for remote operations must incorporate satellite connectivity for critical alerts, implement store-and-forward capabilities to log events when out of coverage, and clearly define which safety controls can operate in disconnected mode versus those requiring real-time communication.

Implementation Best Practices

Successful geofencing implementations share common characteristics. Data governance must be built into the system from the start, with role-based access controls limiting who can view live location data. Security and safety teams may need real-time access, but line managers should typically receive only exception reports for genuine safety events, preventing micromanagement.

For mixed-use vehicles or personal phones, workers must have the ability to disable tracking when off-duty through physical or software switches. This is critical for compliance with workplace surveillance legislation and for maintaining worker trust. Automated data retention policies should delete location history after defined periods unless required for active incident investigations.

Geofence design requires understanding the limitations of positioning technology. Boundaries should never be drawn tightly around hazards but should include appropriate buffers. Testing under real-world conditions—including poor weather, urban environments, and connectivity challenges—should occur before relying on geofencing as a primary safety control. The system should be treated as one layer of defence in depth rather than a single point of failure for critical safety functions.

References

1. Safe Work Australia. (2024). Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au
2. Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 No 47 (NSW). https://legislation.nsw.gov.au
3. British Standards Institution. (2022). BS 8484:2022 Lone worker device systems. Code of practice. BSI Standards Limited.
4. Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. (2024). Australian Privacy Principles guidelines. https://www.oaic.gov.au