Google Maps Impact on Palestinian Navigation in the West Bank: Challenges and Solutions
On a recent Monday in the West Bank, human rights attorney Diana Buttu found herself stuck in traffic for nine hours to drive a distance less than 10 miles. Israeli authorities had set up a temporary checkpoint on her route, creating a massive backup of cars on a busy highway in the disputed Palestinian territory. In much of the world, drivers can avoid—or at least, anticipate—these kinds of roadblocks by checking apps such as Google Maps. But for years, that’s been easier said than done in the West Bank, home to several million Palestinians.
Residents in the West Bank have long complained that missing and outdated data on Google Maps, including accurate information about road restrictions and street regulations, make the app unreliable and sometimes difficult to use. The start of the war in Gaza in October of last year, however, has made problems with the app even worse for drivers such as Buttu, a former legal advisor to Palestinian government officials. “I’ve been so irate with all of this,” she says. “You spend so much brainpower trying to maneuver.”
The Challenges with Google Maps in the West Bank
WIRED spoke with Buttu and four other people who have driven recently in the West Bank who say the world’s most popular navigation app sometimes leads users into traffic jams, walls, and onto restricted roads where they may have potentially dangerous encounters with Israeli authorities. These problems have prompted Palestinians to crowdsource information about congestion and other road conditions themselves on social media.
Some of the issues raised by users stem from circumstances outside of Google’s control: Checkpoints have become more common and variable in wartime, and Israel has interfered with GPS readings in the area. But the users say they believe the tech giant could be doing more to make Google Maps safer and more dependable for Palestinians.
Efforts to Improve Google Maps in the West Bank
Inside Google, dozens of employees have been urging company leaders over the past year to make improvements to Google Maps that would benefit Palestinians, according to three current and former staffers involved in the advocacy or on the maps product team, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
One current Google employee alleges, based on internal data they’ve seen, users in the West Bank have largely abandoned Google Maps for navigation. Google spokesperson Caroline Bourdeau declined to comment on the assertion. She says traffic jams caused by checkpoints are reflected in Google’s routing and estimated time of arrival calculations.
“Any claims of Google Maps showing bias in this region are false. We’ve updated thousands of roads, street names, place names and postal codes in the West Bank and Gaza—and are constantly working to get accurate data to help us map this highly complex area,” Bourdeau said in a statement.
Longstanding Gripes and New Challenges
Israel’s assault on Gaza has shined a spotlight on what some Palestinians perceive as a digital apartheid. Small groups of workers at several tech companies have protested how common services such as YouTube and Instagram are denied to Palestinians or operate less effectively for them. Google Maps, in particular, has been a source of simmering frustration for years.
Even before the war, Google Maps users in the West Bank say they were accustomed to receiving potentially unsafe directions. One persistent issue they point to is the fact that Google doesn’t distinguish between unrestricted roads and ones that are only permitted to be used by Israelis, such as those leading to and from Israeli settlements where Palestinians aren’t supposed to go.
Despite its drawbacks, users tell WIRED they still previously found Google Maps to be helpful in the region, especially when they traveled to unfamiliar places. Since the war began, though, they feel the app has become unbearable.
Alternative Solutions and Workarounds
Many Palestinians have turned to Telegram channels, WhatsApp chats, Facebook groups, and an independent app called Azmeh—meaning traffic jam in Arabic—where they collectively share updates about traffic problems and new checkpoint locations. That information can then be used to manually plot routes. But the unpredictable nature of traveling in the West Bank means that people still need to incorporate up to three hours of buffer time in their schedules.
These workarounds still fail. In September, Leila had to spend 30 minutes on the phone with someone who knew the area well to help find a friend’s house in an unfamiliar area of Jericho in the West Bank. A Palestinian tech worker living in Israel, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their employment, says that last month a one-hour trip ended up taking five hours because a checkpoint had closed earlier than expected and Google Maps had given no indication that was the case.
Buttu, the Palestinian attorney, is dreaming of the day Google Maps develops features that feel inclusive of her community. About a month ago, she says she used the app while driving in the West Bank to locate the nearest gas station in the hopes of finding a bathroom. Buttu says the gas station denied her companion access to the facilities, allegedly because she was Palestinian.
Google Maps lets businesses label themselves as LGBTQ-friendly or women-owned. To Buttu, a similar label on the app for establishments in the West Bank to highlight themselves as Palestinian-friendly would be not only a welcomed small gesture from the tech giant, but also perhaps a vital improvement to what is already one of the most difficult places to navigate in the world.