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by qingcharles 714 days ago
The cell providers actually do erase this data. I tried to subpoena it for a murder suspect to help show he wasn't at the scene, but he left it too late, and Verizon said that they delete their data after 5 years. I don't know the timescales of the other networks.

Not to say that the NSA don't have it all backed up -- I'm sure they do -- but for warrant (i.e. legal process purposes) it probably has a shorter timespan than the Timeline data stuck on Google's infra.