Did you know that in your pocket, you could accidentally post your private photos to Google Maps to represent a business or location near you? It happened to me.

I got a notification on the lock screen of my Samsung smartphone from Google Maps in my pocket while I was walking, asking me if I wanted to post my latest photo to help people recognize a shop I was next to.

I pocket-uploaded my latest photo to Google Maps. Luckily my latest photo was a picture of some trees. It inspired me to disable my Google Maps location settings really quick (anyone would be well advised to do that).

It should really be common sense to anyone using it: do you really think the data of your location isn’t harvested by Google? One can only imagine where that data ends up.

If one tries to research something along the lines of “Google uploads private photos in pocket,” you don’t get many results with a search engine. It’s asking Google for information about Google. Even with an alternate search engine such as DuckDuckGo, not much info can be found about this occurrence yet I’m sure it has happened to other people.

It isn’t new news that Google Maps tracks you. Some recent headlines being made about it (if early 2017 is recent) add that now, other people can track your every motion as well.

This headline from Phys.org reads “Google Maps already tracks you; now other people can, too.” Reading from it:

Google Maps users will soon be able to broadcast their movements to friends and family—the latest test of how much privacy people are willing to sacrifice in an era of rampant sharing.

The location-monitoring feature will begin rolling out Wednesday in an update to the Google Maps mobile app, which is already installed on most of the world’s smartphones. It will also be available on personal computers.

Google believes the new tool will be a more convenient way for people to let someone know where they are without having to text or call them. The Mountain View, California, company has set up the controls so individuals can decide with whom they want to share their whereabouts and for how long—anywhere from a few minutes to indefinitely.

In case you didn’t notice, the creepy feature described above was rolled out several months ago. I didn’t notice myself.

It shouldn’t take much thought to realize people are allowing themselves to slip into a very dangerous no privacy zone with a lot of future implications.

Just follow this link:

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

For more information on this train of thought, here are a few excellent videos.