03/05/2019 08:15:10 AM

Google Maps now sends you amonthly email review of your Google Maps Timeline. The email invites you to review your month’s travel and daily activities. For those who want an opt-in world, and I have pined for such a world for ages, I checked and it is: you enable the feature when you opted-in to Location History with this Google Account and you viewed your timeline on Google Maps. Maps should have a setting, too, because small screen mobile users in particular are less likely to pore through Google Account settings than they are likely to toggle a setting. Perhaps it does, but I could not find one in Android phone app. 

For me, this is fun (or sad), considerate, useful and innovative, and worrisome.

t’s fun (or sad) because you are reminded of where you’ve traveled, even locally, for example, you’re reminded of fun night out, or a trip to the emergency room.

It’s considerate because you can edit your Timeline: so you can timeline your travel, but on review, delete any travel you don’t want Google to store.

It’s useful if you keep track of business use of your vehicle. It’s innovative, too.  I could have some fun if I could correlate travel data against my fitness watch data; for example, are my visits to fitness centers more concentrated when I travel than when at home? Do I walk more when in Europe or at home than when I travel within the continental US? Does travel have any influence over when I am sick?

It’s worrisome because of the many tracking and concomitant privacy implications. I am not thrilled by the prospect that Google or any collector would share my travel and fitness data with third parties, especially health and life insurance companies.

Lifestyle is evolving. Internet of Things will record even more of our lives and behaviors. Like any data or metadata collection, it’s not the data but the purpose or intent that makes collection intrusive. And it’s not only the collection, but whether informed consent is sought before use. I’ll remain curious or skeptical while I consider, “Is Google taking baby steps where a longer stride is appropriate?” and  “Are others who offer tracking features taking similar strides?” w

We all need to think about appropriate stride length.