If you don’t like to broadcast where you’ve been by “checking in†on social media but still want to remember the places you’ve visited, Google Maps can now help.
The company announced this week that it will be rolling out a new feature, “Your Timeline,†that lets users see the IRL places they’ve visited arranged by day, month, and year. The timeline will allow you to revisit the exact path you may have taken on a lazy Sunday stroll, the stops you made on a trip to Rome, or the take-out restaurant you frequent after hitting the gym.
And if you use Google Photos, the company can pair your pictures to specific days “to help resurface your memories.†That photo of exceedingly delicious Italian gelato can remind you not only when you were in Rome but where, exactly.
All of which may sound great to you if you’re the kind of person who really, really wants a digital record of your weekend walking routes or after-work bar hops. It’s practical, sure, but it’s also potentially creepy.
This new opt-in update means that your real life movements are being tracked, continuously, on Android-powered phones, even if you don’t do a search on Google Maps. As with online search history, users can delete specific data from their Timelines, or erase their full history entirely.
“Your Timeline is private and visible only to you,†Google says in a blog post. Which seems a little disingenuous, because presumably it’s also visible to Google. Google already catalogs your searches and your clicks. A company built on following you online—and targeting ads based on that data—stands to gain the more it knows about your offline travels, too.
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