Google will begin storing Maps Timeline data locally on user devices rather than Google accounts from December 1, 2024.
The tech giant revealed adjustments to their services in December, including a modification to the auto-delete control for location history. The new default setting for auto-delete is now three months instead of the previous maximum of eighteen months.
Google Maps Timeline, as the name implies, helps users track routes, trips, and places they have been to over time, assuming Location History and Web & App Activity settings enabled.
With the latest change, the company will host data on users’devices. The company has announced that it will no longer allow users to view the data on the web.
The updates, it added, are gradually rolling out to all users of the Google Maps app. Users are also being asked to turn on backups to save an encrypted copy of the Timeline data on Google’s servers to facilitate transfer when switching devices.
Google Announcement
Once your device data moves to your phone, Timeline data on Google Maps won’t be available on your computer – Google’s note.
The development is part of a series of changes the company has enacted in response to allegations that the company misled consumers and illegally tracked their movements despite turning off Location History from the account settings by taking advantage of the non-obvious Web & App Activity setting.
Leaving ‘Web & App Activity’on and turning ‘Location History’off prevents Google from adding your movements to the ‘timeline’- its visualization of daily travels. An Associated Press investigation revealed this in 2018. However, it does not stop Google from collecting other location markers.
Google has since settled with several states in the U.S. over this practice, with the company also opting to pay $62 million to numerous non-profits in April 2024. A similar lawsuit filed in the state of Texas is pending.
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