How to Turn Off Google Maps Location Tracking
From 3D driving directions to showing how crowded a business or restaurant is at any given moment, Google Maps has made modern life considerably easier with a range of innovative features. However, one particular feature has long received mixed reactions from users: Timeline, also known as Location History.
The feature keeps a detailed record or log of the places you visit every day. While it can be useful when trying to remember the name of a restaurant you visited in the past, many people consider it a significant intrusion into their privacy.
For some users, having their location continuously recorded in the background can feel like constant surveillance. There are also potential security risks if such information falls into the wrong hands.
Google recently introduced a system that stores users’ Location History directly on their personal devices instead of keeping it on its cloud servers. Even so, many users may still prefer to disable location tracking altogether. Fortunately, turning off Google Maps’ Location History or Timeline feature is relatively simple.
How to Stop Tracking from Your Smartphone
Google Maps Timeline or location tracking can be disabled through the My Activity section of a Google Account or directly through the mobile app. However, it is important to remember that the setting applies to a specific device.
This means that if you use Google Maps on a tablet or multiple smartphones, you will need to follow these steps separately on each device. If you later decide to turn the feature back on, you can follow the same process and enable it at the final step.
To turn off Location History, first open the Google Maps app on your smartphone and tap your profile picture on the right side of the search bar. From the menu that appears, select Your Timeline. On the next screen, tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner and select Location & Privacy Settings. From there, go to Timeline, where you will find a drop-down menu.
If you want to stop future tracking while keeping the data already stored, select Turn Off. If you want to stop tracking and permanently delete all previously stored history, choose Turn Off and Delete Activity.
Automatic Data Deletion and Other Privacy Options
If you want to keep recent travel or location information for a while but have older data deleted regularly, Google also offers an automatic deletion feature. Go to the Auto-delete option near the bottom of the same settings menu. From the drop-down list, you can choose to have data older than three, 18 or 36 months automatically deleted.
You can also tap the cloud-backup icon at the top of the main Timeline page to enable or disable an encrypted backup of your device’s Timeline data to your Google Account.
To edit or delete the places visited on a specific day, you can use the pencil icon below. If you want to remove information from a particular period all at once, the Delete range of Timeline data option allows you to clear the selected data and maintain greater control over your location privacy.
//DBTech/BMT/OR//
