Google Maps releases ‘mobility reports’ showing hotspots where Brits are STILL going out during lockdown
GOOGLE will be publicly tracking your movements during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The tech giant has revealed it will publish data showing where people are going in over 130 countries.
The public can also take a look at the 'mobility reports' that Google publishes to .
In the UK the information will be on a country-by-county basis.
Each report will contain place categories like retail and recreation, bus, subway and train stations, residential areas, grocery and pharmacy, the beach and places of work.
The amount of people in these areas will be compared to the amount of people they had in them a year ago.
Google hopes the information will help officials trying to manage the outbreak.
The aim is for figures to be published regularly to show where people were going two or three days before.
Google has stressed that it will preserve the privacy of individuals.
Its data will be based on either the Google Maps app or one of Google's other smartphone services.
The UK Government Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said: "We're working closely with tech companies to find innovative ways to stop the spread of coronavirus, protect the NHS and save lives.
"Google’s publication of covid-19 mobility reports will help improve our understanding of the impact of the social distancing measures.
"Using anonymous data in this way is a great example of how we can do that, while continuing to protect people's personal data."
The first reports in the UK were based on information for March 29 and show that trips to most places have decreased.
Retail and recreation areas were said to be 85% less busy, parks and work places have seen just above a 50% decrease and transit stations have seen 75% less people.
Trips to places of residence have seen a 15% increase.
This lets you see exactly where you've been on a given day, even tracking your methods of travel and the times you were at certain locations.
Alternatively, if you've got the Google Maps app, launch it and press the hamburger icon – three horizontal lines stacked on top of each other.
Then go to the Your Timeline tab, which will show places you've previously visited on a given day.
If you've had Google Location History turned on for a few years without realising, this might be quite shocking.
Suddenly finding out that Google has an extremely detailed map of years of your real-world movements can seem creepy – so you might want to turn the feature off.
The good news is that it's possible to immediately turn Google Location History off at any time.
You can turn off Location History here:
However, to truly stop Google from tracking you, you'll also need to turn off Web & Activity Tracking.
You can see your tracked location markers here:
In other news, a conspiracy theory claiming 5G has caused the Covid-19 pandemic is doing the rounds on WhatsApp.
Your internet may be getting slower as the coronavirus outbreak causes a huge surge in web traffic.
And, social media platforms has been inundated with bots trying to spread fake coronavirus news.
What are you thoughts on this Google Maps revelation? Let us know in the comments...
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