Many Android smartphone users may be unaware that Google is able to monitor and record the history and history of all the places where it has been . The culprit of this monitoring, little publicized and often ignored in Android, is called location history which, using information from wifi networks and connecting cells, can at any time identify the exact place where you are .
The existence of this feature is certainly not new, only that it is a bit hidden and can be avoided by some people.
The problem is that this Google location history is activated the first time the smartphone is started, when Google asks if you want to enable location reporting, without saying that all the places you go to are recorded and without explaining how to disable it in future in case you don't want to.
The first time you start a new Samsung Galaxy, HTC One, LG or Nexus, when you register your Gmail account to use Google applications, you are also asked to activate the location service .
The Google Location Service uses Wi-Fi antennas (it is not necessary to be connected to a Wifi network) and the signal from the cellular network to determine the position more precisely and faster, often with lower energy consumption than GPS.
The GPS, in fact, provides the device with the precise position so that it can be used for driving and satellite navigation, but consumes a lot of battery power so it must be activated only when necessary and then deactivated.
The Google location service allows applications to be able to know where we are without needing to activate GPS, using normally activated antennas such as that of Wifi and that of the telephone network.
You can then use Google Maps, the weather app, Google Now and other location functions without having to activate GPS.
The data on the places where you were then are also recorded in order to create a history of each movement made and to give personalized information via Google Now, which uses recent positions to calculate the arrival time in a place based on traffic .
All this very useful, just know that the position history remains saved on Google servers, visible only to us, at least in theory.
Anyone who uses Android (and also who uses Google Maps on iPhone ), if he has left this option active, can go to this page and review, in a very precise map, all the places where we have been in the last few days, day by day and hour by hour.
By clicking on the link on the left " show all points " you can see the detail of each place we have been.
Each point on the map represents a wifi signal used to locate the device.
If it annoys that Google knows all the places we have been, you can disable the function.
To disable Google geo-location, go to Android settings and, under Geolocation (sometimes it is under Security ), go to Location Services and disable Google location sharing.
From PC, you can disable Google location by going to this page of the activity management and then turning off the position history switch.
In addition, you need to go to the //myactivity.google.com/myactivity page, press on Task Manager on the left and then disable Web and App Activities .
The same option is also found in the Google Settings app.
You can also turn off location history from here .
Alternatively, you can also delete the history of the places where you have been from the timeline web page, using your computer.
From here you can click on a day and then click on the "delete history" link.
On the drop-down menu where Show is written, you can change a day and see the history of the last 30 days and then delete it.
Those who are concerned about their privacy could choose to keep the location reporting active to take advantage of it in the various applications, but disable the recording of the positions which is not, after all, so important for the functioning of the Android services.
Keep in mind that the same Google Maps location history is also on iPhone as well as Android.
In reality there is no problem with the history of the places where you have been which is really useful to review where you went on a certain day and to monitor the movements of the child for example.
It also works very well to follow the kilometers traveled during a trip, to retrace all the stages.
Google should however be more transparent in activating this function, clearly explaining how to deactivate it and maybe protect it a little more.
At present, in fact, anyone who has our smartphone in hand can monitor our movements by adding another Google account in the phone which could only be noticed after a long time.
