Why does my iPad mini think I’m in another state?

Did you change your Apple ID settings for your region?

Change your Apple ID country or region - Apple Support

Did you check your settings for the region and language?

1. Go to Settings  > General > Language & Region.
2. Set the following:

• • The language for iPad
  • The region
  • The calendar format
  • The temperature unit (Celsius or Fahrenheit)
  • The measurement system (metric, U.S., or UK)
  • The first day of the week
  • Live Text (text you can select in images to copy or take action on)

...

copied from: Change the iPad settings - Apple Support

I’d remove Norton.

Did they mention they can’t scan your device apps or device storage, and can only redirect and scan (and track, inject, and/or block, at their option) your network traffic?

It’s the latter—the VPN they’re using—that’s causing the issue here.

barabpan wrote:

Why does my last year’s mini iPad think I’m in another state? It didn’t think so before.

If you’re looking at some website or at some mail message geolocating your IP address after a secure login or such, a location in the same country is about the best you should assume, and geolocations off by several states are the norm. Actually accurate geolocations of IP addresses are hazardous (abusive exes, thieves, worse) and are yet more complex to maintain and update as the accuracy is increased.

If you’re looking at your location in Apple Maps, then GPS and cellular location data is apparently not available, and your Wi-Fi network appears mis-located.

I’d make an educated guess that you perhaps have a WiFi Only model iPad.

Unlike your iPhone and WiFi & Cellular models of iPad, WiFi Only iPads do not have any GPS location capability with which to directly determine their location - and as such are completely reliant upon their network connection to infer an approximate location.

Without benefit of GPS, your approximate geographic location is inferred from a “database lookup” of (a) your WiFi Network Name (SSID) or detected neighbouring WiFi networks - and (b) the “public” IP Address provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). 

If the mapped WiFi network name or IP Address are not available within the applicable databases, or if this information substantially differs between sources, then your approximate location may not be computed - or may wildly inaccurate. This situation often occurs if you are in a remote/rural location where neighbouring WiFi networks are scarce - or if connecting over satellite or VPN connections.

Network IP Addresses and WiFi networks are frequently mapped in urban and cosmopolitan areas (including “crowd source” techniques) and as such approximation of your location from lookup against these databases can be provide relatively high accuracy. As population and network density diminishes, this mechanism becomes progressively less reliable.

If you can, perhaps try connecting to a different WiFi network - be it private, public or your telephone WiFi hotspot.

As already mentioned above, some websites may attempt geolocation based upon your public IP Address - this, very often, being the IP Address from which you “exit” your internet provider’s network to the internet - and this itself may be geographically very distant from your actual location. If you are using advanced features of iCloud+ And use Apple’s Private Relay services, your true IP Address (and hence actual location) is also intentionally masked.

I hope this explanation as to possible cause is helpful.

The Norton App is likely re-routing your network traffic via its own Proxy Gateway - and it is this IP Address (and geographic location) that is likely to provide a determined geo-location that is remote from you. This is, from a security and privacy perspective, potentially of benefit to you - limiting your derived location to be in the same region/country.

However, should you wish website operators to receive more information and to be able to establish a potentially more accurate location (recognising that you are surrendering a significant degree of privacy in so doing) you might discontinue use of the Norton product.

You are very welcome. At least you now have a better understanding of how your geo-location is derived by websites - and the potential privacy advantages/benefits derived from routing your internet traffic via a third-party proxy/gateway.

barabpan wrote:

It looks like my reply didn’t print.

thank you everyone for all the suggestions. I deleted the Norton App. And all worked. The puzzle though is that a few weeks back, with the Norton App on my iPad I was able to access any website I wanted. The problem occurred when Norton tried to change the location to my actual location.

Good that you got it working.

For too many of the add-on security vendors in recent years, they’re closer to data collection and tracking vendors. One of the better known add-on anti-malware apps was caught selling personally-identified web browsing data, and web purchasing data.

This is atop the discussion of whether the add-on anti-malware provides any appreciable benefits over the built-in malware scanning and malware disabling features inherent in the app store. The app store does not block data collection apps and tracking apps (theoretically, so long as the collection is in the privacy statements) and doesn’t block less-than-useful apps, but it does block overt malware, and that which gets past the app store review and gets detected gets remotely disabled and removed. Apple has a very big remote app disable switch, and they use it.

The app store is not a panacea and iPhone and iPad malware does exist, but what we have does pretty well without added help. And too often the added third-party app help can itself be a bigger problem to our security or privacy than what it claims to prevent.

barabpan wrote:

Well, I’ve learned a lot from everyone’s helpful answers. The question is, do I really want to know what’s under the hood of my car, or do I just want to drive it, with no issues!!

thanks again.

De nada.

There are lots of sketchy add-ons for your car, too. Deer-repellent “whistles”, “EMP” “shields”, fuel-efficiency “improvements”, etc.

Most markets have some rubbish products on offer, and computing and cars are no exception.