Short answer: no, not to your door. An IP address points to a network and an approximate area. Only your internet provider can link an address to a subscription, and it only does so when the law requires it.
What the address actually tells
When a website sees your IP address, it can look up:
- the network — for example Bezeq International, Partner, Cellcom, HOT or a VPN service;
- the country — usually right;
- an approximate place — often the city or region where the provider has equipment.
In Israel, a striking number of connections are placed in Tel Aviv or the Central district, because the providers have their central equipment and data centres there: in our copy of DB-IP Lite, about three quarters of all IPv4 addresses geolocated to Israel are in the Tel Aviv and Central districts. Read more in How IP geolocation works.
Who can link the address to you?
Your provider knows which subscription had which address at which time. It can only hand that link to the police or others with legal authority, typically after a court order. A website, a gaming opponent or someone in a comment thread has no access to it.
What about ‘IP tracing’ in films?
When someone in a film ‘traces the IP’ to a house on a map, that’s fiction. A normal lookup gives what you see on this site: a network and an area with a wide margin of error. The map pin is an estimated centre, and the circle shows how uncertain it is.
What can reveal your location instead
- Location permission in the browser (GPS or Wi-Fi based), which you must accept.
- Photos with location data (EXIF) that you upload.
- What you write yourself — addresses, workplace, routines.
If you want to hide your address
A VPN or Tor makes websites see the service’s address instead of yours. That moves your trust to the VPN provider and does not stop tracking through cookies or logins. See VPNs and your IP address.
See for yourself
Look up your own address and see how coarse the location is, or compare IP geolocation for different addresses.