How can your approximate location be found using WiFi SSIDs?
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In order to reach the internet, you need to go through an ISP (internet service provider). The ISP is a for profit company that only gives internet to devices that have paid it money. The ISP can do this because it has a list of devices/access points that have paid it, and every time a device asks it for internet it checks against that list to see if this request has paid enough to be allowed the internet. And, just like most service providers, billing information and location will be connected to the account.
So the ISP knows what account is accessing the internet based on what WiFi you are connected to. And it knows the approximate location of each WiFi account it allows. Combined, anything that has access to the ISP data can know your approximate location. Even things that don’t have the inner ISP data can still have a guess within a city or so, because they get the internet request from your ISP and the ISP has an approximate location as well (this is how location targeted ads can work).
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