The search giant says it’s still investigating the bug
Location sharing in Google Maps is helpful for keeping track of family and friends — and if it creeps you out, it’s also easy to customize for privacy’s sake. Users can set specific time limits or simply keep it active until they choose to turn it off. An update in late 2021, however, apparently affected timing controls for many users. Google recently addressed the bug, confirming that it’s under investigation and offering a workaround.
Users began leaving complaints on the Google Maps product forum near the end of last year. One wrote that her partner’s phone only allowed him to “share it up to 24 hours before it automatically switches off.” Another community member left a comment complaining about the same problem tracking a child’s location and added that the kid’s “account is verified and all seems ok with it.” That’s an important detail to consider, as certain Google features are restricted to users who have verified their age in order to meet minimum requirements.
By January, users were growing frustrated. One community member was so annoyed with the problem he wrote, “I feel like just installing a virus on my own phone to get tracking data from it.”
This all might have sounded like an isolated problem, but Google verified the severity of the issue in its attempts to address it earlier this week, and offered two solutions. The first — despite many comments insisting the accounts in question were indeed verified — was to look into age verification, which requires a credit card or valid ID.
The second is to follow a set of steps that basically just tries to make sure your location sharing options are all set up correctly and not configured to intentionally expire — the “Until you turn this off” setting should make sure that sharing sticks and permit uninterrupted access. If it doesn’t, let Google know. Whatever you do, don’t download a virus just to access tracking data. That wouldn’t work out well for anyone.
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