Ironic indeed. I can’t help but wonder if Google stores the geolocation data privately where only they can access it for their own data mining uses before removing it from the photos.
Each photo's geolocation data is stored. Of course.
It is shown in the UI, as well as indexed so you can search by location.
For example, I can search for "photos of dogs in Portland" and it'll show all the pics of dogs I've taken in Portland.