Change your privacy settings now.
With questions already being asked about the privacy implications of the new AI-powered security protections rolling out to Android devices, another privacy-related data warning has just dropped from Google. This one comes with a deadline of May 18 to act in order to save your Timeline data and change your privacy settings. Here’s what you need to know and do.
Google Confirms Timeline Data Will Be Deleted If Action Not Taken
“You need to choose new settings to avoid losing Timeline data,” Google has confirmed in an email that dropped into my inbox March 6, and those privacy settings will need to be changed before May 18 for good measure.
Failing to choose the correct privacy settings, and update the Google Maps app for your phone in the process, will mean that all saved visit and route data will be deleted.
This is actually a good thing, from both a security and privacy perspective, as it happens. The Google Maps Timeline feature, which used to be known as your location history, and wrapped up visit and route data into a handy map-based interface, is in the process of being relocated from Google’s cloud servers. Where is it going to? The more privacy-focused location of your smartphone itself, where the data will benefit from the security and privacy protections that it brings.
Change your Timeline settings now.
What Google Says About The Timeline Data Changes
If you have the Timeline feature switched on for your account then you will likely have received a notification from Google regarding the forthcoming changes. Timeline is the helpful location history feature that lets you time travel and see where you have been. “With Timeline,” Google said, “your visits and routes are automatically saved to a map on each of your devices.” However, Google also now warns that this is changing and if you choose to keep the Timeline feature enabled, “all of your devices will save new visits on their own Timelines – including any devices that previously had location history reporting turned off.” Hence the requirement to change your privacy settings now to avoid losing that data, or to opt out altogether.
Google has warned that, if no action is taken, “your visits and routes will be deleted, and your Timeline settings will be turned off after 18 May 2025.” Importantly, your devices will keep saving Timeline data, and Google will continue using your data based on how location history works currently, until then. According to Google, location history data may be used to show information based on anonymised location data, detect and prevent fraud and abuse, as well as improve and develop Google services, such as advertising products.
Change Your Google Location Privacy Settings Now
Because enabling Timeline means you give Google consent to regularly save your precise location, even when Google apps aren’t open, to produce a map of where you have been, you might want to disable it anyway or just wait until May 18 when it will be turned off automatically. If you want to keep using the Timeline, however, then Google has said that you will need to make sure the Google Maps app is up to date on your smartphone and then go to the Timeline settings to change your privacy preferences.
Google Timeline data deletion options.
If you want to keep using the Google Timeline, you can choose how long you want your data to be kept, ranging from three, 18, and 36 months, or until you decide to delete it manually.