Google will stop telling law enforcement which users were near a crime

The change comes three months after a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation that found police across the US were increasingly using warrants to obtain location and search data from Google, even for nonviolent cases, and even for people who had nothing to do with the crime. — AP

Alphabet Inc’s Google is changing its Maps tool so that the company no longer has access to users’ individual location histories, cutting off its ability to respond to law enforcement warrants that ask for data on everyone who was in the vicinity of a crime.

Google is changing its Location History feature on Google Maps, according to a blog post this week. The feature, which Google says is off by default, helps users remember where they’ve been. The company said on Dec 14 that for users who have it enabled, location data will soon be saved directly on users’ devices, blocking Google from being able to see it, and, by extension, blocking law enforcement from being able to demand that information from Google.