Google Stores Your Location Data Even If Location History is Turned Off [Report]

An Associated Press investigation has discovered that many Google services on iPhone and Android will store your location data even if you have explicitly turned off Location History.

Google's support documents claim that says "With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored"; however, computer science researchers at Princeton found that was not true.

For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are. And some searches that have nothing to do with location, like “chocolate chip cookies,” or “kids science kits,” pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude — accurate to the square foot — and save it to your Google account.


“If you’re going to allow users to turn off something called ‘Location History,’ then all the places where you maintain location history should be turned off,” says Jonathan Mayer, a Princeton computer scientist and former chief technologist for the FCC's enforcement bureau. “That seems like a pretty straightforward position to have.”

After being contacted by the AP, Google says that in order to turn off these location markers, users must turn off another setting that does not reference location information. It's enabled by default and called 'Web and App Activity'.

More details in the full report linked below...

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