Privacy takes centre stage at Google I/O 2019 developer conference

Google is bringing new privacy features and controls to its family of apps. Here’s a breakdown of privacy-focused features coming to Google products.

Google products, including the new Pixel 3A phone, are displayed during the Google I/O conference at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on May 7, 2019. (AFP)

Google is making some bold changes to its key services and products to guarantee better user privacy. At its I/O 2019 annual developer conference, Sundar Pichai announced a range of new features and updates focused on users' privacy and digital wellbeing.

Google pointed out its 'Safe Browsing' protection is enabled on over 4 billion devices. It also claimed that it is blocking over 100 million spam and phishing emails in Gmail daily.

New privacy features are coming to Google's end-user centric products such as Assistant, Search, Maps, Chrome, and its upcoming Android Q operating system. It has also made privacy tools more accessible for users. Now users can easily control all their privacy activities in one place. Google's one-tap access will come to more products this month.

Google Maps
Google will make it easier to delete location history on Maps. Users will now be able to review and delete their location activity directly from Google Maps. This feature will soon roll out to Assistant and YouTube as well.

Google also announced incognito mode for Maps which will launch with the new Pixel phones later this year. Similar to Chrome's incognito mode, here too users will be able to track and navigate without any data being stored in their Google account. Google said it will bring incognito mode for its Search tool as well.

Auto-delete
Google is bringing auto-delete feature to web and app activity. With this tool users can select the time limit between three and 18 months for location history, web and app activity data to be saved. Any data saved beyond the time limit will be automatically deleted.

Android Q
Google's latest iteration of Android will come with almost 50 new privacy and security features. On Android Q, Google has added a dedicated 'Privacy' section under the settings menu for all the important privacy controls. Google is also adding a 'Location' section where users will be able to see the location data being shared with apps.