Google Maps’ Timeline function (previously generally known as Location Historical past) is to some individuals extraordinarily creepy and gross, and to others extremely helpful because it permits you to return in time and see the place you went on any particular day at any particular time, supplied after all that you just had your Android telephone with you.
Google is getting ready an enormous overhaul of how Timeline works, one which ought to hit all customers throughout the subsequent few months (the transition began in December). Timeline will solely be saved on every gadget, if you happen to decide into it, so it should not be accessible from Google’s servers. That is a boon for privateness, for certain, however in the middle of the transition Google did a fairly main oopsie.
Particularly, it inadvertently deleted some individuals’s Timeline knowledge, and it is gone for good until they opted into encrypted cloud backups of mentioned knowledge. Sadly, it appears extremely believable that solely a really small minority of customers have carried out that, and so for many who have not and do not see their Timeline knowledge anymore, there simply isn’t any answer – it should eternally be misplaced.
In keeping with a Google spokesperson, this was the results of a technical concern and never person error or an intentional change. That is not very comforting to those that’ve misplaced their Timelines eternally, after all. The excellent news, if we are able to name it that, is that Google appears to know precisely who was affected by this, and has despatched emails to these individuals explaining its error – so if you have not obtained an electronic mail just like the one within the screenshot above, you are secure.
