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Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

businessinsider.com

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Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#51

Post by ChrisArchitect »

johnerik wrote: post #14
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

I also like having this data — fun to occasionally time travel. The earliest record I have is from June 16, 2015, anyone have earlier?

Looks like Nov 13 2009 here.

The time capsule is amazing and I've referenced it many times over the years

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#52

Post by dataflow »

Wait, I have so many questions. So will this data still be exportable? Will it be stored with the OS or with Maps? If with Maps, what happens if someone clears the app data? If with the OS, what happens to people without the most recent Android versions? How do you prevent accidentally losing the data just because you moved phones or lost yours or cleared the app data?

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#53

Post by ajross »

762236 wrote: post #45
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Can't anyone that dislikes you file a lawsuit and subpoena the data too?

Discovery is subject to oversight. The court signs off on the subpoena and your lawyer gets to argue why it's not valid before it does. No, "because I dislike you" isn't going to fly. But if you're in a legitimate feud with someone and they can make a real case that your location information is important evidence for the court to see, sure.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#54

Post by ajross »

66yatman wrote: post #28

A scheme to reduce storage size.

Map location data stored at, what, 1 minute granularity for the entire population of the world is...

You know, I'm not going to bother to flip over an envelope on this one. That's at least a million times smaller than Youtube daily traffic. And I might be short a few orders of magnitude.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#55

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

Laforet wrote: post #47
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #2

Reminds me of the wonderful idea, Data is the new toxic waste. https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/secure-futures-magazine/data-... There's too many awful or just self-dealing forces in the world which will legislate access to user's data. There's nothing your company can do to defend itself. The situation will only intensity and get worse, governments will only ever expand their legal access to the cloud's many data-keep…

Bruce Schneier wrote a similar post back in 2016, and he was ridiculed pretty badly by everybody. Interesting to see how the opinion has shifted to the other extreme in less than 10 years. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...

What I hate is there’s no way for me to say “I know the risks, I still want this feature”. I have been carefully making sure this data is collected for years and I use it all the time.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#56

Post by cglong »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

I was a victim of a car accident. When I was filing the claim with their insurance provider, they wanted the exact location and time of the incident as proof; Timeline has absolutely come in handy for me :)

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#57

Post by kccqzy »

Larrikin wrote: post #42

Is there a self hosted solution to aggregating and viewing this data? I'm slowly moving away from Google and other companies clouds where I can. Would be nice to take this data out in takeout and explore it locally, but it's such a useful feature for looking back on my travels.

I use Arc, a paid app to track my location that stores this data on my device and only on my device. It has a good but not great UI to explore this on device, make corrections on transport types which are by default inferred by machine learning, mark and manage points of interest. The UI is somewhat complex so it's not the easiest to use, but it's easy enough after a while.

Since you explicitly mentioned moving away from Google, I'll note that the app has an opt-in integration with Google Places. You have to click a "Search Google Places" button to activate it so you won't accidentally use it.

It's self-hosted in the sense that it's just an app.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-app-location-activity/id10...

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#58

Post by anigbrowl »

oh_sigh wrote: post #39
Tempest1981 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snap a photo of all the interesting places you find yourself.

Sometimes the thing you're looking for isn't something that you recognized as interesting in the moment.

You can turn it off on Android, I did so a few years ago. Although my phone has a perfectly good GPS receiver, Google really dislikes having it turned off and constantly pesters me to turn it back on when using their Map product.

Re: Location history data in Google Maps will soon be stored on user devices

#59

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
arebop wrote: post #5

I sometimes query this to help me recall details from years ago, so I'm sad that the encroachment of very broad government surveillance and the rise to power of extremist politicians makes it unacceptably dangerous to continue to provide the service.

Have never found myself in and cannot imagine a circumstance where I'd need to know my precise location at a point in time years ago, or really even at any time other than the present.

[deleted]
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