Google hides Maps information about crowds on roads and places in Ukraine

Google has turned off information about traffic on roads and places in Ukraine in its map service Maps. The company says it does this to protect citizens. People navigating still see the information about traffic on roads.

The removal of the information is temporary and deliberate, Google confirms to Reuters. It concerns the ‘traffic’ layer in Google Maps in the apps and on the web. This shows how busy it is on main roads and in certain places. Information about how busy it is in shops and restaurants has also disappeared.

Google won’t say why it’s taking that live information away, other than that it’s about the safety of communities in the country. Russia made a military invasion last week. Google has consulted with authorities in Ukraine about temporarily hiding the information in the map layers.

That information comes from phones with Google services, whose users have agreed to pass on location information: this is necessary when using navigation, for example. This concerns many of the active Android smartphones.

Traffic in Google Maps, Ukraine, February 2022