Google says it will delete users’ location history at abortion clinics, other ‘personal’ data

Google introduced the change one week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, permitting states to ban abortion. More than a dozen states are set to ban the process, and these bans may include criminal penalties for abortion suppliers or sufferers.

Following the courtroom’s resolution, many social media customers instantly referred to as for individuals to delete period-tracking apps, or take other precautions for medical privateness on their telephones — although these actions might not be ample, in accordance with reporting from the New York Times.

Google will additionally delete data entries of customers who go to counseling facilities, fertility facilities, dependancy therapy amenities, weight reduction clinics and cosmetic surgery clinics, Fitzpatrick wrote. Tracking location history is off by default, and it will be deleted at any time, she added.

Large tech firms have come underneath elevated scrutiny for amassing person data in recent times, and for his or her affect in politics.

Prior to the courtroom’s resolution formally being handed down, one digital surveillance expert told POLITICO he was involved about surveillance of non-public well being selections in a post-Roe world.

“We’re going to see all of the tools that are being developed as a way to optimize our health care now being repurposed into some sort of ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-style tracking device,” Albert Fox Cahn, government director of the Surveillance Technology Oversignt Project, stated at the time.