After days of silence on the subject, Google announced that users’ location data will be automatically deleted if they visit an abortion clinic. “If our systems identify that a person has visited a (sensitive) facility, we remove those entries from the location history shortly after the visit,” Jen Fitzpatrick, vice president of the Californian group, said in a statement. The decision comes a week after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
Usa, the Supreme Court sanctions the end of the right to abortion: the Roe v. Wade
Democratic politicians and human rights groups fear that the personal information of women who have abortions or people who have helped them may be used against them by prosecutors from conservative states who have banned abortion. For this reason, for weeks they have been asking the main technological platforms to stop storing so much personal data, from online searches on abortions to travel on applications such as Google Maps.
Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Apple had so far remained silent. Until this announcement from the Mountain View company. Jen Fitzpatrick points out that location history is turned off by default and that users can control what is kept and not. Regarding the requests from the authorities, Fitzpatrick assures: “We take into account the privacy and security expectations of the people who use our products and we warn them when we accept the requests from the government, unless human lives are at stake”, he added.
In the US, Facebook and Instagram remove posts and photos about abortion pills
by Massimo Basile
Among the sensitive facilities affected by Friday’s ruling, Google includes domestic violence shelters, weight loss clinics and detox centers.
Some laws passed even before the Supreme Court ruling, like that of Texas in September, encourage private citizens to sue women suspected of having abortions or the people who helped them – even the Uber driver who took them. in the clinic, for example.
Google’s technologies risk becoming “tools for extremists who want to suppress people seeking reproductive health care,” 42 elected US officials wrote in an open letter to Google chief Sundar Pichai in late May. “Because Google keeps information on the geographic location of hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it regularly shares with government agencies,” they specified.