For the paranoid person who feels that the government is watching them, you may not like the fact that even if you turn off the location services mode on your phone that Google may still track you. Though, if you are ever the person who has had their phone stolen and or for safety reasons needed to track someone (God forbid) you can appreciate maybe that Google may still be able to track your personal affects.
While Google asks permission for users to share location information on its applications, it doesn’t halt tracking services when users pause Location History, according to an AP report.
Google’s official message is to promote user autonomy when it comes to deciding what information to share: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored,” according to the company’s privacy page. But the AP said that isn’t true. Even pausing the Location History, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without permission, the AP found.
“Location History is a Google product that is entirely opt in, and users have the controls to edit, delete, or turn it off at any time,” the company said in a statement to Bloomberg. “As the story notes, we make sure Location History users know that when they disable the product, we continue to use location to improve the Google experience when they do things like perform a Google search or use Google for driving directions.”
Full story at Bloomberg