{"id":22459,"date":"2024-03-01T15:52:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T11:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=22459"},"modified":"2024-03-01T15:52:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T11:52:33","slug":"google-location-history-security-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/google-location-history-security-2024\/22459\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Location History is now stored offline\u2026 or maybe not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the accusations routinely hurled Google\u2019s way, there\u2019s one that especially alarms users: the company can track the location of all Android \u2014 and to some extent, Apple \u2014 phones. Past experience suggests that Google indeed does this<\/a> \u2014 not only using this data to display ads, but also storing it in Location History and even providing<\/a> it to law enforcement agencies. Now Google promises<\/a> to only store Location History on the device. Should we believe it?\n<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with Location History?<\/h2>\n

\nLocation History lets you easily view the places a user visited and when they did so. You can use it for all kinds of things: remembering the name of that beach or restaurant you went to while on vacation two years ago, finding the address of a place your better half often goes to after work, getting new bar suggestions based on the ones you\u2019ve been to, locating the florist that delivered the surprise bouquet for a party, and many more. The different ways this feature both benefits and harms Google account holders are commonly reported. Little wonder then that many \u2014 even those with a clean consciences \u2014 often want to turn it off completely.<\/p>\n

Regrettably, Google has often been caught abusing its Location History setting. Even if explicitly disabled, Location History was still collected under \u201cWeb & App Activity\u201d. This led to a series of lawsuits, which Google lost. In 2023, the company was ordered to pay $93 million under one suit<\/a>, and a year earlier $392 million under another<\/a>. These fines were but a pinprick to a corporation with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, but at least the court had Google revise its location tracking practices.<\/p>\n

The combined legal and public pressure apparently led to the company announcing at the end of 2023 a drastic change: now, according to Google, Location History will be collected and stored on users\u2019 devices only<\/a>. But does that make the feature any more secure?\n<\/p>\n

How does Location History (supposedly) work in 2024?<\/h2>\n

\nFirst of all, check that the feature has been updated on your device. As is wont with Google, updates for the billions of Android devices roll out in waves, and to relatively recent OS versions only. So, unless you see an alert that looks like the one below, it\u2019s likely your device hasn\u2019t received the update, and enabling Location History will save the data on Google\u2019s servers.<\/p>\n

\"Unless<\/a>

Unless Google has explicitly warned you that your Location History will be stored on your device, it\u2019s likely to continue being saved to Google\u2019s servers<\/p><\/div>\n

If your Location History is now stored locally, however, Google Maps will offer options for centralized management of your \u201cplaces\u201d. By selecting a point on the map, such as a coffee shop, and opening its description, you\u2019ll see all the times you visited the place in the past, all searches for the place on the map, and other things like that. One tap on the location card can delete all of your activity associated with the place.<\/p>\n

Google says it will store the history for each place for three months by default and then delete it. To change this setting or disable history, simply tap the blue dot on the map that shows your current location and turn off Location History in the window that pops up.<\/p>\n

\"Options<\/a>

Options for configuring and disabling Location History<\/p><\/div>\n

An obvious downside to offline Location History is that it won\u2019t be accessible to the user on their other devices. As a workaround, Google suggests storing an encrypted backup on its servers.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that what we\u2019re discussing here is the new implementation of Location History as described by Google. Detailed analysis of how this new pattern actually works may reveal pitfalls and caveats that no one except Google\u2019s developers knows about at this point.\n<\/p>\n

What threats does this update eliminate?<\/h2>\n

\nAlthough the new storage method improves the privacy of location data, it can\u2019t be considered a one-size-fits-all solution to all existing issues. So how does it affect various hypothetical threat scenarios?\n<\/p>\n