The move follows a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation revealing the increasing use of warrants by police to obtain search and location data from tech companies. Google also plans to change its auto-delete settings from 18 months to three months by default. The company will also make deleting activity such as searches, directions, visits, and shares easier. However, privacy advocates are concerned about reverse keyword search warrants, where police can request data on people who have searched for a specific term.
Key takeaways:
- Google is planning to store Maps user location-history data on the device rather than in the cloud to address privacy concerns and the potential for geofence warrants.
- The update, which will make it more difficult for anyone, including law enforcement, to access the data, will roll out during the next year on iOS and Android.
- Google also plans to change its auto-delete settings, which previously was set to 18 months by default. The update resets the auto-delete to three months by default.
- Privacy advocates are concerned about a reverse keyword search warrant, where police can ask a technology company to provide data on the people who have searched for a given term.