Google has admitted that it lost some customer data due to a ‘technical issue’ affecting its Google Maps Timeline feature. The feature, which tracks users’ locations around the world, appears to have been deleted for some people without any backup option available.
The company’s email to affected users claims that most who enabled encrypted backups can restore their data, while those without backups are left with no means of recovering their lost information. Google has declined to explain the nature of the technical issue and how many users were impacted.
This incident is not the first time Google has faced criticism for mishandling user data. In 2023, the company reduced its default data retention period from 18 months to three months, leading to complaints from users who missed the change and lost their historical location data.
Similar issues have been reported at other companies in recent months, including Veeam and Cloudflare, highlighting concerns over promised resilience not being met.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/24/google_maps_timeline_data_loss