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How To Find Out If Google Knows Where You've Been

How To Find Out If Google Knows Where You've Been
Sriram Sharma

If you’re even the slightest bit privacy minded, or would like to know what kind of a digital footprint you’ve left on Google’s services, it’s time to get briefed about the Location history page on Google Maps.

Apart from your search and browsing activities, voice searches, contacts, calendars, apps and other device data, the videos you searched for and watched on YouTube, Google also keeps a log of the places you’ve been to. While these are turned on by default, you can manage your activity settings on the account history page.

Based on your smartphone, the Location history page keeps a log of all your movements, with timestamps. According to Google, this data may be used by them to push ads and improve search results, but then it could also be used by anyone who has access to your login details or your Desktop or laptop PC.

Select the drop down list to 30 days and toggle between the months to find out how much of your location data has been tracked - in you do not have any red dots on the map, it means you’ve probably not turned the service turned on.

If you want to delete your location history from their services, or manage location reporting, Google offers step-by-step instructions for iPhone, iPad and Android users. The Location history page seems to be the easiest way to delete all history, or from a particular time period.

This page can also be handy if you want to keep a log of where you’ve been on a trip, it can also prove useful when trying to locate the whereabouts of a lost device, and you don’t have Android Device Manager or Find My iPhone installed.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.