Google to start permanently deleting users’ location history

Google will delete everything it knows about users’ previously visited locations, the company has said, a year after it committed to reducing the amount of personal data it stores about users.

The company’s “timeline” feature – previously known as Location History – will still work for those who choose to use it, letting them scroll back through potentially decades of travel history to check where they were at a specific time.

But all the data required to make the feature work will be saved locally, to their own phones or tablets, with none of it being stored on the company’s servers.

In an email sent by the company to Maps users, seen by the Guardian, Google said they have until 1 December to save all their old journeys before it is deleted for ever.

Users will still be able to back up their data if they’re worried about losing it or want to sync it across devices but that will no longer happen by default.

The company is also reducing the default amount of time that location history is stored for. Now, it will begin to delete past locations after just three months, down from a previous default of a year and a half.

In a blogpost announcing the changes, Google didn’t cite a specific reason for the updates, beyond suggesting that users may want to delete information from their location history if they are “planning a surprise birthday party”.

“Your location information is personal,” the company added. “We’re committed to keeping it safe, private and in your control. Remember: Google Maps never sells your data to anyone, including advertisers.”

But the company has come under increasing pressure to help users preserve their location privacy in the face of aggressive law enforcement efforts to weaponise its stored information.

So-called “dragnet” surveillance requests, for instance, have compelled Google to hand over information about every user in a particular region at a particular time, necessarily including many with no other link to a crime beyond a ping from a GPS signal.

The clashes came after the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, which had guaranteed the right to abortion for Americans. The company committed to deleting information about searches for abortion clinics to protect women from being criminalised based on their search history.

But a Guardian investigation later that year revealed that the company’s Location History still stored enough information about a researcher’s movements to uncover exactly which branch of Planned Parenthood had been visited and when, even marking the location with a pin – although it wasn’t explicitly stored as a clinic.