Butu, who regularly travels from her home in Haifa, Israel, to the West Bank city of Ramallah for work and to visit friends, said Google Maps has gotten her lost many times in recent years. “We have been told to run directly into the wall that has been built since 2003,” she says.
Others have encountered the same wall near the Qalandia checkpoint, which separates Jerusalem from the West Bank, and nearly driving into it has become something of a rite of passage. “I was once trying to get to an office in my neighborhood in East Jerusalem, and Google Maps wasn’t helping me at all,” said Leila, who works for an American company far from Ramallah. He asked that only his first name be used for privacy reasons. . “I wanted to go down a path that was completely cut off by a wall.”
Google’s Bourdeaux told WIRED that the company is investigating the route and will provide an update once the situation can be verified against reliable data.
Even before the war, Google Maps users in the West Bank said they were used to receiving potentially dangerous directions. One of the persistent problems they point out is that Google has identified unregulated roads and roads that only Israelis are allowed to use, such as roads in and out of Israeli settlements that Palestinians should not go on. The fact is that there is no distinction. On her way from Haifa to Ramallah, Butu said Google Maps once led her to a closed gate, where an Israeli soldier approached her car with a gun pointed at her. “I had to explain that I had made a mistake,” she says. Google is “optimizing to follow the settler path, which is extremely dangerous for me as a Palestinian.”
Bourdeau said Google doesn’t differentiate between Palestinian and Israeli routes, and that would require knowing personal information such as the user’s nationality.
When Google Maps leads her to the settlement, Butu says she speaks English, hoping to pass as a lost foreigner. Other Palestinian users told WIRED that when they end up in an unexpectedly dangerous place, they try to turn around or backtrack as quickly as possible.
In some cases, Google Maps may refuse to provide directions altogether, such as when traveling between West Bank cities such as Hebron or Ramallah. Instead, the app says “Unable to calculate driving route” (WIRED was able to reproduce the same result). One current Google employee said the reason for this was to enable directions between the three West Bank governorates, two of which are officially under increased control of Israeli authorities. He says it’s because Google hasn’t invested in it. Google spokesperson Bourdeaux said the company is working to resolve the issue.
new challenge
Despite its shortcomings, users told WIRED that they had previously found Google Maps helpful in the area, especially when traveling to unfamiliar locations. But since the war started, they feel the app has become untenable. Shortly after the fighting began, Google cut off its ability to provide an overview of local traffic conditions to protect “community safety.” Users must enter specific locations to check traffic conditions on their route, which may add an extra step for some users.
Two current Google employees also said that due to changing wartime conditions on the ground and the rise in spam associated with the conflict, Google has been forced to remove many of the suggested edits submitted by employees and West Bank drivers. It states that it has not responded to the request. The tech giant addresses problems like not being able to find your way or place. As a result, the road data on the app has become outdated over the past year. Bourdeaux said Google will apply updates when suggestions can be verified through reliable sources.