Photo: Google forums
While for many, Google Maps is just the perfect navigation app that makes it a lot more convenient to find a specific destination, the service actually comes in handy in so many other ways.
21-year-old Jamie Chalmers from England received a 100 British pounds ($120) parking ticket, as parking operator Premier Park Ltd claimed it overstayed at one of their locations by three hours.
In other words, the driver was accused he used the parking without paying, and as a result, he was required to pay a hefty fine.
However, Chalmers claimed he didn’t actually use the car park and, in fact, he didn’t even drive when the parking operator claimed he was caught on camera. The 21-year-old driver, therefore, appealed the ticket, and to prove he didn’t use the car park, he shared information collected by Google Maps location history.
When enabled, the location history feature keeps track of users’ locations, then allows them to see where they traveled on any specific day.
The driver, therefore, shared the Google Maps location history data to prove he didn’t use the car park, so Premier Park had no other option than to revert the decision and therefore drop the claims.
If you, too, want to enable location history, the first thing you must do is to log in with a Google account in Google Maps. The Location Reporting feature of your Android device must be turned on as well.
By default, location history comes disabled, so users need to manually enable it from the settings screen of Google Maps.
Needless to say, if you change your mind and no longer want to have your location tracked, Google Maps lets you do this with just a few taps, with all data to then be removed as well. However, you can configure the app to automatically delete location history older than 3, 18, or 36 months, so you’ll never have to worry about privacy.
In other words, the driver was accused he used the parking without paying, and as a result, he was required to pay a hefty fine.
However, Chalmers claimed he didn’t actually use the car park and, in fact, he didn’t even drive when the parking operator claimed he was caught on camera. The 21-year-old driver, therefore, appealed the ticket, and to prove he didn’t use the car park, he shared information collected by Google Maps location history.
When enabled, the location history feature keeps track of users’ locations, then allows them to see where they traveled on any specific day.
The driver, therefore, shared the Google Maps location history data to prove he didn’t use the car park, so Premier Park had no other option than to revert the decision and therefore drop the claims.
If you, too, want to enable location history, the first thing you must do is to log in with a Google account in Google Maps. The Location Reporting feature of your Android device must be turned on as well.
By default, location history comes disabled, so users need to manually enable it from the settings screen of Google Maps.
Needless to say, if you change your mind and no longer want to have your location tracked, Google Maps lets you do this with just a few taps, with all data to then be removed as well. However, you can configure the app to automatically delete location history older than 3, 18, or 36 months, so you’ll never have to worry about privacy.
Google News