The My Activity page on your Google account is pretty important and useful if you want to track all the things that you’re doing on Google. But it’s not the most secure thing since if you leave it on your browser, anyone with access to your device will be able to read your log. Since Google is making a big privacy and security push as per the recently concluded I/O developers’ conference, they’re adding a bit more security by giving you the option to require a password when viewing your My Activity page.
When you go to your My Activity page normally, it will load a list of things you’ve been doing across Google to help its services be more useful for you. But now according to 9 to 5 Google, you’ll notice a new prompt that tells you to “add more security to My Activity by turning on extra verification”. This is to make sure that whoever will be viewing your log is really you. Whoever is looking at the My Activity page will be able to see and delete your full history there.
When you turn that option on, you will be prompted to enter your Google Account password to set it up. After that you will see the top half of the page as you would normally but the full history part can only be seen after you “verify it’s you”. For verification, you will be taken to the standard sign-in page for Google accounts. It can be a pain during times when you want to easily access it but it’s still an extra layer of protection.
It is worth noting that the password requirement only applies to the My Activity page. Your history may still appear in some of the other Google products where you’ve enabled it and so far, those do not have the option to sign in first before you can view, edit, or delete them. With this current Google push for security and privacy, expect that they may introduce more tools to make it easier to manage such things.
Some of Google’s major consumer apps like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos are being updated with new tools to help manage your content, especially to limit how they are using data for advertising. Over the next few months, we’ll see more news about these different options on its different products.
