It’s the kind of nightmare scenario we’ve been talking about for over a decade. Google Maps algorithms experienced an integrity breach that shut down German national infrastructure.

Confusion reigned on German autobahns and highways at the start of one of the busiest holiday breaks of the year on Thursday after Google Maps wrongly indicated that vast swathes of them were closed.

People using the navigation service around major conurbations such as Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin on motorways between western, northern, south-western and central Germany were confronted with maps sprinkled with a mass of red dots indicating stop signs. The phenomenon also affected parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.