Google set to roll out new personal online safety features

Google has added new search options to help people maintain control over their personal information, privacy, and online safety.

Mr Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Google’s Communication and Public Relations Manager for West Africa, stated in a statement on Friday that Google is concerned about its customers’ online safety, making it the safest method to search.

According to Kola-Ogunlade, Google launched the ‘Results about you’ tool in 2022 to make it simple for users to request the removal of search results that contain personal phone numbers, home addresses, or email addresses, right from the Google app or wherever search is accessed.

He stated that Google had greatly updated and improved the tool, assisting users in keeping track of personal contact information in searches and alerting them when it was discovered so that it could be removed.

According to him, Google will be releasing a new dashboard in the coming days that would notify consumers if web results containing their contact information appear on search.

The communication officer said that one could quickly request the removal of those results from Google — right in the tool.

“Google will also notify one when new results from the web containing contact info pop up in Search, to give you added peace of mind.

“You can access this tool in the Google app by clicking on your Google account photo and selecting “Results about you”, or by visiting goo.gle/resultsaboutyou.

“This tool is available in the U.S. in English to start, and we’re working to bring it to new languages and locations soon,’’ he said.

According to him, more control of family is another feature of family from inadvertently encountering explicit imagery on Search.

According to Kola-Ogunlade, with this upgrade, explicit imagery such as adult or graphic violent content would be blurred by default when appearing in search results.

He stated that the new ‘SafeSearch’ blurring setting was being rolled out globally for all users and that it could be modified and turned off at any time, unless a guardian or school network administrator had locked the setting.

Kola-Ogunlade said that Google was also making it easier to find parental controls directly in Search.

“Just type in a relevant query like “google parental controls” or “google family link” and you will see a box with information on how to manage your parental controls.’’

He, however, highlighted other improved features such as ‘enable people remove’ which could be used to remove from Search any of their personal, explicit images that they no longer wish to be visible in Search among others .