Google Maps Introduces Enhanced Privacy Features and Enhances Functionality of ‘Blue Dot’
Google Maps is an essential part of everyday life – whether it’s navigating to a place you’ve never been before, checking out a restaurant in a hurry, or researching a place before you visit using Street View.
Most of Google Maps’ features rely on location data, and the company has made sure you can control it with tools like incognito mode and auto-remove, but the search giant has now doubled down on giving users more control.
In a new blog post, Google says that it brings the ability to save your location timeline on your device, delete events from certain locations, and the ability to tap a blue dot on maps to see, for example, whether location history is on and what permissions Google Maps has.
Device timeline and encrypted online backups
This feature ensures that your timeline is saved directly to your device, giving you more control over your data. As before, you can still delete it all, parts of it, or disable it.
However, by default Google now only stores 3 months of timeline data, and this can be increased as well. Or you can also make an encrypted backup to store online, so it doesn’t count against your Google account’s storage space.
Remove activity related to specific locations
As you guessed, this allows users to delete visits to a specific location, searches you’ve made, and even directions. This is coming to Android and iOS users in the coming weeks.
The blue dot becomes functional
The blue dot shows your location on the map, but now it brings location-based control right at your fingertips. “Just tap it and you’ll see at a glance whether your location history or timeline settings are enabled and whether you’ve given Maps access to your device’s location,” Google said. This too would be rolling out to both iOS and Android users in the coming weeks.
