A system for building topical interest profiles for members of a situational awareness system using location tracking information. Members who participate in the system activate location tracking on their mobile communication devices and provide the system with real-time access to the location tracking data. The situational awareness system analyzes a member's location tracking data, detects potential topics of interest for the member based on the location tracking data, and then prompts the member to update their profile data to include the detects potential topics of interest. If the member adds a suggested topic to their profile, the situational awareness system includes the member in situational awareness information provided to requesters seeking information concerning members interested in the added topic. The situational awareness system may also direct online queries to the member relating to the added topic and increase the member's priority for participating in online queries.