How to password-protect your Google account’s My Activity page

Google collects a lot of data on us and the things we do on its website and the services we use. Thankfully though, Google does give us access to our activities that we can then delete, but one of the problems is that access to the My Activity page doesn’t require a separate login assuming you’re already logged into your Google account.

This can be a problem for privacy if you’re using a computer at home that can be accessed by others, meaning that they can easily log into your My Activity page to see what you’ve been up to. Google is aware of this loophole and have since introduced a new feature that will password protect the My Activity page. To secure your data, here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to My Activity
2. Click the link that says “Manage my activity verification”
3. Select “Require extra verification” and click Save

According to Google, enabling the extra verification means:

“If you turn on extra verification, Google will make sure that it’s really you before you can see or delete your full history on ‘My activity’. This can help keep your history safer on shared devices.”

This means that whenever you attempt to access the My Activity page and want to view the full history or manage it, you’ll have to verify yourself before proceeding. In the event that someone access your My Activity page, they won’t be able to progress any further unless they somehow know your password.

This is a pretty useful feature and we don’t know why Google did not roll it out earlier, but we suppose better late than never. The feature should already be live for most users so do check it out if you’d like to better protect your privacy.

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