Anonymizing user location data in a location-based application

Abstract

A location-based application, such as a parallel reality game, may receive, from a client device of a user of the application, location data representing the user's position in the real-world. In one embodiment, a game platform associated with the application writes location data derived from the received location data to each of a plurality of retention tables, each storing the location data at a different level of granularity and for a different retention period. Upon expiration of a retention period for a first retention table, the game platform anonymizes the location data and transfers the anonymized data to a second retention table storing the data at a lower level of granularity. The game platform repeats this process until expiration of the retention period for the table having the lowest level of granularity before deleting the location data from storage.