Google has announced a change to how it handles user location data, and for once, it's a clear win for privacy. The Google Maps mobile app will no longer send your location history to the cloud—it'll keep that data safe and sound on your phone. This move could effectively end the law enforcement practice of geofenced police warrants, which have almost exclusively targeted Google.
Before this change, Google Maps location data was fed into the Timeline feature, which is accessible online and from the device. The timeline can tell you everywhere your phone (and therefore you) has been, which can be handy if you need to find that shop or bar you only vaguely remember. However, the privacy tradeoff is significant. This is why we can't have nice things.
Over the past few years, police around the US have stepped up their use of geofenced warrants, which can allow them to access the location data of any phone in a given area at the time a crime was committed. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of geofenced warrants submitted to Google more than tripled. By 2021, Google reported it was getting 3,000 such warrants per quarter.
This digital dragnet has been used in some high-profile cases, like identifying arsonists during 2020 protests and finding rioters who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. However, police also use these warrants frivolously, invading the privacy of dozens to investigate petty theft.
Instead of going to the cloud, this data will only live on your phone after the new policy is in place. You can choose to back it up to the cloud, though. If you do that, Google will encrypt the data before it leaves your phone. If Google can't see the data, no one else can, either. So, innocent folks who just happened to be in the area won't fall under suspicion or have their personal data scoured by police.
It appears the decision to lock down individual location history was a direct result of geofenced warrants. A Google staffer recently let Forbes in on the secret, which they were not authorized to disclose. Apparently, Maps location history was such a juicy target that police just couldn't help themselves. A quarter of all warrants submitted to Google are geofenced, and Google is the primary recipient of these warrants due to the extensive location data it keeps.
Police can continue issuing warrants for location data, but Google won't have that data to provide much longer. The new Maps location features will roll out to Android and iOS gradually over the coming year. It will also change the amount of time it keeps user data. The old default was 18 months, but it's changing to three months.
