PALO ALTO, California, June 24 (Reuters) – The tech industry is preparing for the awkward possibility of having to hand over pregnancy-related data to law enforcement, following Friday’s decision. U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade’s precedent that for decades guaranteed women’s constitutional right to abortion. Read more
As state laws limiting abortion come into effect after the ruling, technology trade representatives told Reuters they fear police will get orders for customer search history, geolocation and other information that indicate plans to terminate the pregnancy. Prosecutors could also access it by subpoena.
The concern reflects how data collection practices from companies like Google’s Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O), Facebook Matrix Meta Platforms Inc. (META.O) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) have the potential to incriminate abortion applicants for the state. laws that many in Silicon Valley oppose.
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“It is very likely that applications will be made to these technology companies for information related to search histories, to the websites visited,” said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a technology researcher at the Ford Foundation.
Google declined to comment. Amazon and Meta representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Folders containing medical records of abortions that took place at the Tulsa Women’s Clinic, prior to the ban on abortion in Oklahoma, are on display in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, on June 20, 2022. REUTERS / Liliana Salgado / File Photo
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Technology has long collected – and sometimes revealed – sensitive pregnancy-related information about consumers. In 2015, opponents of abortion ran ads that said “Help for Pregnancy” and “You Have Options” to people entering reproductive health clinics, using so-called geofencing technology to identify smartphones. ligents of the area.
More recently, Mississippi prosecutors charged a mother with second-degree murder after her smartphone showed she had been looking for abortion drugs during the third trimester, local media reported. Conti-Cook said, “I can’t even imagine the depth of information my phone has about my life.”
While suspects may inadvertently hand over their phones and offer voluntary information used to process them, investigators may turn to technology companies in the absence of solid clues or evidence. A United States v. Chatrie, for example, police obtained an order for Google location data that took them to Okello Chatrie in an investigation into a bank robbery in 2019.
Amazon, for example, complied at least partially with 75% of search warrants, subpoenas and other court orders requiring data on U.S. customers, the company revealed during the three years ending June 2020. fully comply with 38%. Amazon has said it must comply with “valid and binding orders,” but its goal is to offer “the bare minimum” required by law.
Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said on Twitter on Friday: “The difference between now and the last time abortion was illegal in the United States is that we live in an unprecedented era of digital surveillance. “.
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Report by Jeffrey Dastin and Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California, Paresh Dave in Oakland, California, and Stephen Nellis Edited by Anna Driver and Matthew Lewis
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