May be you don’t know that, since many years ago (let’s say at least since 2012) by default Google trace the positions of your phone … therefore of you, because I am sure you always have your phone with you! This happened possibly after  asking you some agreements that, I am quite sure, you did not even read …

You can  find in the Google portal a page where, day by day, you can see (on a map) all the movements you did during every date, in any way (e.g. by car,  by bike,  by foot). There is also a section were Google states how your data will be used: I have to admit that I did not read that section … but, even though I can continue to believe in Fairies, how can I believe in what it is possibly stated there?  I am living in a real world, where knowledge is often power and power is money

May be, you can think that it is not your case, so you are not traced, … but I am sure that you have an Android phone linked to your Google account (and/or Google apps that use your localization) and possibly you always leave active your smartphone GPS, even when you don’t really need it (e.g. no navigator is running).

I experimented that many friends of mine have the tracing feature set to on, without they even know the existence of that feature! So, may be it is better that even you check it, following the easy procedure described in this post: as you will see, it is quite easy this check … once you know how to check it  … and possibly disable this possible unwanted feature.

IMPORTANT NOTE
I don’t know if that disabling only has an effects on the user front end (i.e. you do not see anymore your traced data, but that information is anyway stored in some Data Base, ready to be used by someone else, in needed). So, if you really care to your privacy, it is better to enable GPS positioning ONLY when you really need it in order that you can be sure that you are not always traced! 😉

Anyway, let see how to check and possibly disable your “agreement” that your positions can recorded somewhere …

If you have a Gmail account, the easiest way is to access the Gmail site with a browser, click on you image (on the right top of the page) and access your Google Personal profile:

Access to your Google Personal profile page (e.g. from the icon, on the top right of Gmail Web page)

Then the easiest way is to look for the Google Dashboard page of Google from the Search input available in the Google Account page or directly go to https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard.

In the following there is the Google Dashboard page that allows you to manage all your data available in your Google Account. In particular, at the bottom of the page there are My Activity and Maps timeline links.

Google Dashboard page that allows you to manage all your data available in your Google Account

Click on Maps timeline and you  will see a map where you can search and see all places you visited: you can filter specifying year, month, day in order to see all your paths.
In the following, there are some screenshots as an example. Selecting the proper day (e.g. selecting one bar), you can drill down and see all paths you did in that day.

You can do the check even for years ago … and possibly you’ll be surprised how everything of your personal data is recorded!

=======================

So let’s see how to disable that “feature” that possibly you don’t want anymore (and never you wanted!): the following screenshots show the step by step procedure, but again, I don’t know if that disabling only effects you to see no more your data but they are kept in any case in some Data Base!
So, if you care for your privacy, the better way is always to enable the GPS positioning ONLY when you really need it.

In setting off that function, your positioning should not be recorded anymore (but your past data remains recorded, as you can easily verify: if you want to delete (not see anymore?) past data, you can do it from another section.

Note that you have to agree twice to suspend the position history.

Possibly you would like to disable also other agreements like the recording of your Web and App activities and so on:

_____________________

An other way to reach your data/activities is to choose the Data & Personalization item of the left menu of your Google Account homepage. In the Activity and timeline section box, you can go to see My Activity section or the Timeline one (Google maps tracing).

___

You could be interested in this post of mine too: How to stop seeing merged location data among several google accounts (e.g. those of family members that you possibly registered on your smartphone)