Why Wi-Fi info needs Location permission

The short answer

Since macOS 11, an app cannot read the current Wi-Fi network’s name (SSID) or the access point’s hardware address (BSSID) unless it holds Location permission. Without it, the system returns nothing at all — not an error, just empty values.

Why Apple treats Wi-Fi names as location data

Because they are. BSSIDs are effectively fixed geographic beacons. Large databases map access point hardware addresses to physical positions — that is how your devices get a location fix indoors, quickly, without GPS. An app that can read the BSSIDs around you can look them up and place you, often to within a few metres, without ever touching the location APIs.

So Apple closed the side door. Reading Wi-Fi identifiers now requires the same permission as asking for your coordinates outright, because in practice they are the same capability.

What that means for a privacy-focused app

It means the prompt is unavoidable for any app doing rogue access point detection, because detection is comparing BSSIDs. There is no version of this feature that works without it.

What you should expect in return is that the permission is used only for that. Airward reads the current network’s SSID and BSSID and the identifiers of nearby access points, compares them against what it has seen before, and stores the result in a local database. It never requests your coordinates, never stores a position, and operates no servers that receive any of it — see the privacy policy.

When the prompt never appears

This trips people up, and it is not always your fault. A few known causes:

• You dismissed it once. macOS is reluctant to ask again. The app cannot force it, so the only route back is System Settings.
• Menu-bar apps have no window to attach a prompt to. Apps with no Dock icon are never “frontmost”, and macOS sometimes drops the request silently.
• The app was launched from a terminal. macOS attributes the permission to the responsible process — so the terminal gets asked, not the app. Launch from Finder.
• The app was updated. A new build changes the code signature, and macOS may treat it as a different client and drop the grant — without re-prompting.

Granting it by hand

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services, find the app in the list, and switch it on. The master toggle at the top must also be on. Changes take effect immediately; a well-behaved app will notice within seconds without a restart.

If the app is not listed at all, it has never successfully registered a request — usually one of the causes above. Quit it, launch it from Finder rather than a terminal, and try again.

A reasonable rule of thumb: an app asking for Location to read Wi-Fi identifiers is doing something legitimate. An app asking for Location that has no Wi-Fi feature is asking for your position.