Google Maps, the flagship application in navigation and location discovery, never ceases to amaze us. It recently rolled out some exciting updates, and now it's focusing even more on privacy, adding new ways to control your location data. The starting point in this digital adventure? That little blue dot in Google Maps that represents you…or at least your current location.
Right now, tapping the blue dot in Google Maps offers shortcuts to save where you've parked or share your location. The latest update, which I'm already noticing on my Pixel 8 Pro review unit, adds options for device location and location history. You can see at a glance whether they're on or not, and you can toggle them with just a few taps.
By default, your location history is turned off when using Google Maps. If you choose to enable it, your activity is saved in the cloud and can be viewed in the app's Timeline feature. Google is preparing a big change: with an upcoming update, your data will be stored locally, not in the cloud, by default. You will still be able to manually save your information to the cloud if you wish.
Google Maps: Update Launched by Google with News for Phones
Google is also shortening the default time before it automatically deletes your location history from 18 months to three months. These changes will take place over the next year. Another small but important update is coming soon – the ability to delete all your data related to a particular place directly from Maps.
Currently, you can remove a location from the Timeline quite easily: simply tap the "remove" option in the location presentation. But if you used Maps to view that place or get directions to it, that data will still exist in Google Web & App Activity if it's enabled for your account. Now, Google is adding a simple way to delete all of this associated information in one step.
Google's blog post mentions the usefulness of this in planning a "surprise birthday party," but in my opinion, this seems especially useful for victims of domestic abuse who might want to quickly delete all their activity related to a specific place. .
The way it works now, it might seem like you've erased all evidence of a visit to a place by removing it from your Timeline, but that might not be the case. Google says this feature will arrive "in the coming weeks." Until then, you can always check your Web Activity settings and history through the Google My Activity hub.
Google Maps updates prove to be not only innovative but also a step forward in protecting the privacy of its users. With these new features, users have more control over their data, providing a higher level of security and privacy in the digital age.
