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Google Location Data Roe v. Wade Letter Overview:
- Who: More than 40 Democratic senators and representatives wrote a letter to the CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., on Tuesday.
- Why: The lawmakers urged Google to stop collecting the location data of its users to protect it from potentially being used against women seeking abortions in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned.
- Where: Google collects the historical location data of its users nationwide.
A number of Democratic federal lawmakers wrote a letter to the CEO of Google-parent Alphabet Inc. this week urging him to stop collecting the location data of users due to the possibility of it being used against women seeking abortions in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The letter was signed by more than 40 senators and representatives who promised to “fight tooth and nail” to defend the rights of women to have an abortion.
The letter comes in the wake of a leaked Supreme Court majority draft opinion which infers the court is preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.
In the event Roe v. Wade is overturned, state laws outlawing abortion would become reinstated within the borders of any individual state, according to the letter.
“We are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google’s current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care,” the letter said.
Letter Says Location Data Could Be ‘Weaponized Against Women’
Lawmakers urged Google to get ahead of abortion potentially being outlawed by committing to no longer collecting, retaining, and sharing the historical location data of smartphone users.
Google “routinely shares” the location data it collects with government agencies, according to the letter.
While the lawmakers acknowledge that the location data collection is mainly used for advertising purposes, they warned Google to not allow it to be “weaponized against women.”
“If abortion is made illegal by the far-right Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers, it is inevitable that right-wing prosecutors will obtain legal warrants to hunt down, prosecute and jail women for obtaining critical reproductive health care,” the letter said. “The only way to protect your customers’ location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place.”
Vice reported earlier this month that the location data firm SafeGraph has allegedly been selling the location data of groups of individuals who visit clinics that offer abortion services.
Are you concerned Google’s practice of collecting location data could be ‘weaponized against women’? Let us know in the comments.
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