Some things that I have found out:
If you select your new photos (or all, if this is the first time you are using PSE 12 and you have imported an old catalogue), "Right Click" -> "Update Thumbnails" the GPS locations from the images will show on the Map. While the flags have been pinned into the map, the association to the images have not. Sounds confusing, or even impossible, how could the flags be displayed without linking to the image?
When it comes to updating the "Places" in other words the location "Place Tags" in PSE 12 it seems that these have to be placed manually. That is, you are required to place the images on a Map location to get that location recorded. So the data help in the EXIF file is ignored.
I'm very confused by how this system has been designed, I could even speculate that only part of the design has been coded, so they released what worked?
If there is somebody out there with a Camera with an internal GPS, I would like to know if the GPS data and location tagging is supported when images are imported.
PS: The online help is no help because it talks about features and even buttons that don't currently exist.