It is no secret that Google, as well as other major technology companies, know a lot about you. Probably a lot more than you think they do. And while in general this is really scary, it can sometimes produce interesting results for a while, before it gets scary again. Case in point: you can start the year chasing yourself with Google Maps.
As seen by 9to5Google, Google Maps is currently launching its “2020 timeline update,” an email that shows you the places you’ve been based on your location history. While this recap is also available monthly, the outlet notes, the 2020 update will show what your travel habits were like throughout the past year.
Yes, 2020 was the year of the coronavirus pandemic, which seriously affected travel and movement in general, and Google recognizes that.
“COVID-19 changed travel around the world in 2020, and how many places people were able to visit,” says the email, according to 9to5Google. “If you were able to travel this year, you will be able to see some of the places you have been with the help of this automatic timeline email.”
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Even though our travel lifestyles have been damaged by the pandemic, it can still be interesting to see where we are going. According to 9to5Google, the update includes a map with the cities and places you have traveled to, as well as a new section called “trends”. This section shows the types of places you’ve visited, such as places to shop or eat. The Google Maps timeline also lets you know how many kilometers you’ve walked and driven.
To use the feature, you apparently need to enable Location History in your Google account settings. (I don’t, which is why I foolishly searched for this recap for a long time and got no results). However, if you have other settings, such as Web and app activity, enabled, Google can still save your location data when you use your sites, apps and services, even if you have paused Location History or deleted your location data, according to the company Support, support Pages for the resource.
On its feature support page, Google says that you can edit your timeline or delete your location history, as well as your time intervals, at any time.
Fortunately, Google says its timeline is not available for everyone to see. It’s private and only you can see it on your phone and on your desktop.
In general, kind of cool, but also kind of scary. It is up to you to decide how a feature like this makes you feel. You might really like to see your data split that way. But if you don’t, you can always Turn that off.
[9to5Google]