We all know that Google pretty much knows everything about us – our search history reveals every tiny detail from our hypochondriac fears to our porn preference. How else do you think they tailor ads to our own personal interests?
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But just how much does this technology giant keep stored? Turns out, the answer to that is quite a lot. That doesn’t mean you should start throwing your computer out the window and going offline for good. In fact, in order to boost transparency Google have launched a website called My Activity, which shows users exactly what Google tracks.
What it will do is show you your search history in great detail (and no, deleting the browser history doesn’t mean the information disappears). It also tracks your location through your phones GPS and Google Maps, which is a pretty fucking alarming fact. On My Activity you can actually check your location history and see literally every place you’ve been to in the past few years marked on a map.
Of course, if this makes you feel uncomfortable knowing that Big Brother is watching your every move, then you have the option of turning the collection of your data off fairly easily. But in reality, are you really that special? Unless you’ve been collecting kiddie porn or buying class As on the world wide web then it’s unlikely that Google are really going to do anything with your information aside from try to sell you shit.
We should probably be more worried about its deal with the NHS to access 1.6million patient records. What are they going to do with that?
