Google Maps might get an important new privacy option soon

Here’s the trouble with letting apps know your location data: It’s a potential privacy nightmare, but it also makes certain apps a lot more useful. 

Case in point: Google Maps. You don’t have to let the app access your location or retain your location history, but then it’s not nearly as good. And if you do let it retain your location history, the only way to make it forget that data is to periodically go into the app’s settings and tap an option manually. 

No more. 9to5Google spotted that a new beta of Google Maps for Android, version 10.10, has an option to automatically delete your location history after a set interval. 

The option is not yet live, but some of the code is there, indicating that you’ll be able to set a range of history you want to keep and then have the app continuously delete everything outside that range. 

We’re talking about beta software, so there’s no guarantee that this feature will make it to the final version, but it does make it quite likely. The feature might have something to do with EU’s ever-tightening privacy rules, but it’s good news for anyone that cares about privacy. 

Google Maps 10.10 beta has another interesting option. A new setting called “Personal events” (located under Personal content) will show “personalized features in Maps, such as map annotations and trip suggestions, based on events from your Calendar and reservations in Gmail.” Given how good Google’s algorithms have become in the past couple of years, this could become very handy, especially when traveling. 

Unlike the location history setting, the Personal events option is live in Maps 10.10 beta for Android. To get this version of the app, you must sign up for Google’s Maps beta program, here.