
Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been.

So the company lets you “pause” a setting called Location History. Storing your minute-by-minute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects - such as a warrant that police in Raleigh, North Carolina, served on Google last year to find devices near a murder scene. Turns out, as AP News reports, that we were wrong to think that: Google Maps open on a mobile device.You would think that telling Google that you didn’t want your location be tracked by disabling an option called “Location History” would stop the internet giant from errr. The AP’s report does not appear to touch on this setting.” “Here, you can select which apps have access to the phone’s location services. “To be clear, the AP’s report focuses primarily on Google’s Activity Controls, which can be found at or . The AP disabled the Location History setting to perform their tests, and found they also needed to disable Web & App Activity to fully weed out Google’s location data collection.”īischoff added that these account preferences are separate from the Location setting in Android, which can be found in the device settings. Google has a commercial interest in knowing where its users go because that information helps improve ad targeting and in turn generates revenue. Speaking to, Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate for, said: “It’s hard to believe that Google unintentionally obfuscated its location-related settings. Users can also delete their location history in their Google Maps timeline by tapping the bin icon.



When you switch off Location History, automatic recording of location for features such as the Maps timeline stops. The Location History feature is just one of the ways Google tracks your location to deliver personalised services and tailored advertising. Following the report from AP detailing Google’s location-tracking practices, many people are concerned about their privacy.Īn investigation by the Associated Press (AP) recently found that Google still tracks users’ location when they use services such as Maps and weather updates.
