'technical Issue' At Google Deletes Some Customer Data

Google has admitted it mislaid immoderate customer data, perchance forever.

The information was stored successful Google Maps’ Timeline feature, which – for those of you who fto Google way you astir nan world – preserves a grounds of locations you visit. That sounds creepy and possibly creepier still erstwhile you recognize Google makes it imaginable for photos to look connected nan Timeline too, truthful that users tin person a ocular grounds of their travels.

Over nan weekend, users noticed their Timelines went missing.

Google seems to person noticed, too, arsenic The Register has seen multiple societal media posts successful which Timelines users stock an email from nan hunt and ads elephantine successful which it admits “We concisely knowledgeable a method rumor that caused nan deletion of Timeline information for immoderate people.”

The email goes connected to explicate that astir users that availed themselves of a characteristic that enables encrypted backups will beryllium capable to reconstruct their Maps Timelines data.

Users who did not make those backups can’t reconstruct their data. Those who did make backups request to manually reconstruct their info utilizing a process Google included successful its email.

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The Register has asked Google to explicate nan quality of nan “technical issue” and to explicate really galore users look information loss.

A Google spokesperson sent america nan aforesaid info sent to users, but didn't reply our questions.

This isn’t nan first clip Google has messed up users’ humanities data: In 2023 nan institution shortened its default information retention clip for location info from 18 to 3 months, but immoderate users missed nan announcement and past complained arsenic their information was purged.

Google is not unsocial successful promising resilience but losing customer data. In caller months we’ve reported connected akin incidents astatine Veeam and Cloudflare. ®