TL;DR: I developed a project to determine if you have ever crossed paths with ‘that’ person before meeting them in your life based on your mobile.

Background

I often read Xataka to stay updated on the latest technological developments and news. One thing that i readed and has intrigued me the most is Shannon Perry’s experiment — a data analyst who used location data from her and her boyfriend’s histories to determine if they had ever been close before meeting each other.

How did she do it?

She exported her and her boyfriend’s data from Google Takeout. For more information, you can visit her website. The approach is simple yet fascinating: finding all instances where two people were close within a specific distance, on the same day, and at the same time.

Now it’s my turn

Considering the approach is straightforward, I was intrigued to develop a similar tool — easy to use and accessible for anyone interested in experimenting with it

Although Shannon explains the procedures to obtain results, as a programmer, I set myself the challenge of doing it on my own, using my own logic.

Tools Used:

• Google Takeout: Used Google Takeout to export my location history data. Once the export process was completed, Google provided a download link.

• Replit: Opted to run the code in the cloud to avoid overloading my laptop. While other options like Google Colab exist, I found Replit worked best for me with the free account. It’s important to interact with the page regularly to prevent the session from timing out.

• Firebase: Since my JSON location records file was approximately 400 MB, I uploaded it to Firebase. I chose to process the JSON files via a URL instead of downloading the file directly.

• CodePen: Used CodePen to visualize the information obtained from Replit. I decided to use a heatmap to visualize most of the matches, along with options like lists and checkboxes to examine the positions of the two individuals in detail.

Let’s get to work.

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Visit my Medium post to keep reading... 😊