Map the places you have been

Google and Facebook both track your physical location and store the data. In this activity you will be requesting a copy of your own data from Google or Facebook and mapping the locations you have been on a map.

Google

  1. Go to Google's history page which shows all sorts of information about the things you search for, click on, and watch. You may need to log in to see this page.
  2. Go to Google Takeout, this is where Google lets you download a copy of your own data. Warning: some of the data sets on this page can be VERY large. For this homework you only need to download Location History.
  3. Follow the instructions to download your data, you will likely have to wait for an email.
  4. Open the LocationHistory.json in a text editor. I recommend a simple text editor such as WordPad, but any text editior including Word will work.
    • If there is no information in LocationHistory.json this means that Google has no tracking data on you. Instead use the data listed in Google Security Settings. In the Recent Activity box click "view all events". The data in this section is less detailed and will only give you city information and IP Address. Put the IP Addresses into InfoSniper to get the latitude and longitude data needed in #9 and #10.
  5. LocationHistory.json should contain records of many of the places you have been and what you were doing when you were there. For example: standing still, riding in a car, or riding a bicycle. Look for lines that look like:
    "latitudeE7" : 391715232,
    "longitudeE7" : -865230978,
  6. In order to map this location it first needs to be converted into something Google Maps can read. Copy the Latitude and Longitude into the appropriate boxes in this converter and click "Add to list".
  7. Copy the resulting line into Google Maps. In the above example the resulting line is "39.1715232, -86.5230978" which maps to Indiana University.
  8. Using Multiplotter map at least 4 locations Google has recorded onto the same map.

Facebook