Bullet points taken from article:
- Google is shutting down the Google Maps Timeline feature on June 9, 2025.
- Personal Maps timelines will be saved on individual devices instead of the cloud beginning on that date.
- Users should begin the migration to on-device Timeline data before June or risk losing all of their past Maps data.
I’m pleased that this potentially sensitive information is moving on-device instead of on Google servers.
I’m sure they’re doing this not for user privacy but simply because they’re going to save a lot of money in server expenses and they didn’t find a good way to monetize that data
More likely that they know of all the data they gather this is the most privacy defying, and impossible to anonymise so they’re fixing it before the EU forces them to.
It’s great that this will be more private, but it’s shitty that there’s not an option to store it encrypted in the cloud. Most phone manufacturers (Google included) are still pretty chintzy with storage space, which is probably why they are limiting this to 90 days of history.
Edit: Actually, there is no hard 90-day limit. I misunderstood this part of the article:
Auto-deletion of data: Visits and routes older than three months will be automatically deleted unless users take specific action to save individual trips.
That “specific action” includes simply disabling auto-delete, or setting it to 18 or 36 months. It’s not something you need to do for every trip you want to retain beyond 90 days. Not sure how much storage this will take up long-term though.