Russian GPS interference disrupts Crowdsorsa invasive species game

Russian GPS interference is disrupting the Crowdsorsa mobile game used to combat invasive species, leaving some municipal funds unused, Yle reports. The disruption is worst in Lappeenranta and eastern Finland, but its effects are also being felt in Ostrobothnia.

In the municipality of Mustasaari, half of the budget allocated for the game will be carried over to next summer. Several other municipalities face a similar situation.

Crowdsorsa project manager Valpuri Kankaanpää said GPS problems occur almost weekly. When a player photographs an area they have cleared, the image is saved with GPS data showing the location. The data is used to match the image with an available area in the game.

During a positioning disruption, the signal may incorrectly show that the player was somewhere else, even kilometres from the actual location. The problems directly affect players’ earnings because their payments are determined using GPS data.

The company monitors GPS interference daily and can identify where in Finland it is occurring. Cases in which the user’s location cannot be determined are rare, Kankaanpää said.

“GPS errors are familiar to us. Very rarely does it deviate so much that we cannot establish where the user has been,” she said.

Russian interference has been particularly evident in eastern Finland, especially around Lappeenranta. The problem is less common in western parts of the country. Other factors, including older phones and dense forests, can also reduce positioning accuracy.

Sanna Kaasalainen, head of the Navigation and Positioning Department at the National Land Survey of Finland’s Geospatial Research Institute, said positioning systems in commercial devices are sensitive to various disruptions.

“The error can be as much as several kilometres,” Kaasalainen said.

Alf Rosendahl, the municipal official responsible for green areas in Mustasaari, said he encounters large GPS errors almost every week while checking boundaries. In those cases, the error can reach tens of metres.

Players are also aware of the problem. Eemeli Savolainen, who has earned more from removing invasive species in Finland than any other player, said the application failed for him on one full day and experienced several shorter interruptions.

Savolainen plays Crowdsorsa under the username Tokunenjr. He has earned nearly 8,000 euros through the game over two summers, mainly in southwest Finland. He said he prepares by visiting each location before the actual removal work begins.