You want to know what Google has stored about you? TECHBOOK shows you where to find out – and how to delete the data.
Google makes most of its money from advertising. The search engine creates a profile from the collected data so that Google can display advertising content that is as relevant as possible to users. You can decide which aspects of you are particularly interesting to Google here see if allow personalized advertising. Over time, and above all at the insistence of third parties – such as the European Union – Google has become more transparent and now shows at least relatively clearly what information the tech giant stores about users on the company servers.
What you have done and seen
Whether you use the Chrome browser, an Android smartphone or Gmail, Google is busy collecting information about you in a structured overview. There is a list of what you have used the respective services for in the past. You’ll see pretty much everything Google knows about you: the places you visit, the sites you browse, the videos you watch, and what you search on Google.
Google also allows you to decide what activity data you want it to store. In the control center With the Google account, you can switch off the search engine saving your location or tracking your search behavior. If you want to prevent Google from storing this data in the future, deactivate the respective option in the control center. But beware: In some cases, certain services may then no longer function properly. If you disable voice and audio activity, for example, the “Ok, Google” phrase to activate the assistant may no longer be available.
Note that turning off activity tracking doesn’t delete the data you already have. The tracking is only “paused”. You can find out how deleting older data works below.
Devices using Google services
You can see on which devices you are logged in with the Google account and when they were last used here see. In addition to the device name, you can find out, for example, at which locations which device was last located and which browsers were last used on it. If you have lost or sold one of the Android devices from the list and forgot to remove your Google account first, the device in question can be removed directly from the list. This will log you out of all Google apps on that device.
What places you’ve been
Do you use your Android device for navigation, or do you generally have the location function switched on? Then Google summarizes this data clearly in a so-called “timeline”. Every single place visited is marked on the Google map. Google keeps track of how many places you’ve been and records the movement pattern for each day. If you click on a specific day, all places visited and all routes are displayed in a timeline and as a map. In some cases, the locations are combined as a trip. Google even distinguishes between different means of transport such as local transport, walking, flying and driving. If you use Google Photos to save your pictures, they will be displayed appropriately in the respective location.
Users have the option to manually adjust the locations and routes. Find the Google timeline of location history here.
Video data from Youtube
Youtube belongs to Google, so the group also knows what users are looking for on the video platform – Click here for your personal search history. Data is also available on individual videos – here is the playback history.
Which apps access Google data
Many apps and online services want to be linked to the Google account. You can see those applications for which you have already agreed to the link and which data these respective services can access here.
How to delete data that Google has collected about you
Already now you can in the activity overview of Google manually request the deletion of your data. Deletion is quite easy to do and allows you to set the period of time as you like. Either you choose to delete all data from today, yesterday, from the last seven or 30 days. Or you enter the data for the period, which then disappears from the activity history. You can even select individual services such as YouTube and Maps for deletion.
In addition, Google users can request the automatic deletion of data in certain periods. It gives users even more control over their own data. Activity data can be automatically deleted from the Google servers after three or 18 months. You can choose automatic deletion here set if data is recorded at all.
You might also be interested in: Google fined billions – market power abused by Android
All Google data can be downloaded here
There is also a collected list of all stored data from Google. All information stored by Google, the images saved in the cloud, documents shared with Google Docs and much more data from Google services can be viewed by users at google.com/takeout request and download.
Google thus provides many settings so that users can find out about the data collected. It’s surprising how much data can be visible in a Google account. If you take your time, you can quickly work your way through the multitude of settings. Worth it.