Protect Your Location Data: Discover New Privacy Controls in Google Maps’ Recent Upgrade for Mobile Users

With its default settings, Google Maps might actually be a bit of a privacy nightmare. It keeps track of which places you’ve visited, where you’ve gone to, and what you’ve searched—if you want to know where someone has been, chances are Google Maps knows. While that’s not a bad thing on its own, all of that data is uploaded to the cloud, and you probably still want easy ways to manage that, and thankfully, thanks to a new update, you now have a few ways to do this.

Google Maps has unveiled a bunch of new features aimed at giving you greater control over your personal information. The navigation app now enables users to delete activity associated with specific locations, offering a streamlined process to erase searches, directions, visits, and shares with just a few taps. For instance, ppeople heading to a specific buisness can easily view and delete their recent activity linked to that particular establishment.

The iconic blue dot on Google Maps, which serves to indicate your location on the map, will serve as a gateway to location controls. Clicking on the blue dot will grant you access to information about the status of Location History and Timeline settings. If you want Location History turned on, your history will now be generated on-device and saved right on your phone instead of being uploaded to the cloud automatically—if you want to keep your previous location history, you’ll have to accept the new terms and choose your settings by June 9th, 2024. The auto-delete option will now be set at three months by default rather than 18 months.

All of these changes also mean that you’ll have to manually back it up and migrate it once you switch phones. In a statement, a Google Maps spokesperson said that “If you’re getting a new phone or are worried about losing your existing one, you can always choose to back up your data to the cloud so it doesn’t get lost. We’ll automatically encrypt your backed-up data so no one can read it, including Google.”

These updates will be progressively rolled out on both Android and iOS in the coming weeks.

Source: TechCrunch

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