I will pretend that my boss wanted proof of exactly what time I got to work one day last week. In the olden days there would be no way to prove that. However, with modern technology used by Google I can see right when I got to work that day. Including the date, time (including seconds) and a map point where I was on that day and time. All I need is an Android phone and to have the location service set to "on." Next, I log into my Google/Gmail account at "maps.google.com/locationhistory."
Go ahead, try it now. I can wait a minute or two. Do not be surprised at what is there…
OK, you are back now and you are probably in either one or two camps. One camp says, "That is cool, I like it!" The other camp is more like, "That is an invasion of my privacy! How do I stop this?"
I am of the former group since I lead a very boring life and do not care that Google knows where I am. As a matter of fact, if I have that service running on my phone I get much more accurate maps when traveling. It also makes it easier for me to find less expensive gas, local movie prices and times, along with many other location based pieces of information.
Before you get too angry you are "supposedly" the only person who can see this data. The reason I say supposedly is this scenario: Let us suppose you are a criminal on the run for a nefarious crime. I imagine a judge somewhere could grant a warrant for your travel data from Google and find your whereabouts on the night of a crime. But come on, most of you are not in that category. Unless you share your maps with your friends they cannot see your location either; however, there are many third party apps out there which do allow this using your Location History.
How to cut on/off this feature in your phone varies by phone. If interested, I suggest you go to Settings, Location (History, Services or something similar) and look for the on/off checkbox. Then set it. However, this does not delete your pervious History if it was on before. To do this you again need to go to the Location History site, on the left side click on "Delete all history." Then to stop it all together click on the Setting Gear in the upper right area of the screen, click it, then "History Settings" and set it to "Disable." You are finished.
I suggest you try if for a while and play with it. You may find it is quite interesting. Is it perfect? No, but it is usually very accurate. I have noticed it will sometimes put a point on the map on a road near where I was and another where I really was. I imagine it lost a satellite signal and regained it quickly.
There are several settings you can play with while on the site. You can look at particular dates and ranges of dates. You can click on a location "dot" and see a timestamp of exactly when you were there. You can also expand "Show timestamps" to see dates and times having location points and click one to see where you were on the map. As with all Google Map data you can show either the map view or the satellite view.
