American technology company Google has updated its map service Google Maps. One of the innovations was that Google refused to collect data on users’ location history, which will now be stored on their devices and not on the company’s servers. Information about this was published in the official gazette Blog organizations.
Google updated its geolocation information policy a few months after Bloomberg’s investigation.
Journalists have found that US police are increasingly using warrants to obtain location data and search queries from citizens in connection with criminal investigations. At the same time, American law enforcement officials request personal information even in non-violent violations of the law and sometimes deal with people who are not involved in the incidents.
Refusing to collect users’ geolocation data would allow Google to legally ignore requests from police and other law enforcement agencies, experts say. Even if one of the users decides to save information about their movements in the Google cloud storage in encrypted form, the company will not be able to respond to the requests of security forces.
At the same time, digital rights and freedom experts remind that police officers can still request the provision of search history. A law enforcement reverse search will show anyone searching for information on Google using certain terms (for example, the address near which a crime occurred).
Previously on Google promise Restrict advertisers’ access to users’ cookies in the Chrome browser.