This seems like a stretch. SSIDs aren't whats stored here, its the mac address of the access point that's stored. There are millions of SSID called "Netgear" fo

This seems like a stretch. SSIDs aren't whats stored here, its the mac address of the access point that's stored. There are millions of SSID called "Netgear" for example. You can't use the name as a unique value, so mac addresses it is. Regardless, phones are smart enough to understand that GPS is authoratitive, AGPS second, and wifi/IP address as last. If GPS/AGPS says Chicago, but the wifi says Atlanta, the phone should consider Chicago authoritative. I also believe its not the access point youre near, but a relationship of access points nearby that gives you a location. So if you see three mac addresses, all three are looked up to do a lookup and act as a sanity check against people recently moving and taking their wifi router with them. I imagine the real reason will be something more prosaic than some GPS shattering bug. Neighbors running a criminal ring perhaps, duplicate mac address, random idiots messing with these poor people, some bug in a popular 'find my phone' app, a geoIP bug, a local craigslist scammer using their address for whatever reason, etc. Sadly, the article doesn't specify what service is being used to track the phones or really any technical details, so its difficult to really say whats going on here. They really should just buy a new access point to be safe (might help). Eventually you'll get a hothead that won't buy this story and that might turn out badly for them. Can't wait for this mystery to be solved. Hopefully, someone from Google or Apple will reach out and investigate this from their end.