This announcement occurs while digital companies are ordered to protect personal data, in terms of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to return to the ROE VS WADE.
Le Monde
While many states should soon, in the United States, prohibit or strongly restrict access to abortion after the decision taken by the country’s supreme court to return to ROE VS WADE, Google announced , Friday 1 er July, measures to protect certain data from the authorities.
In a press release, the company announced that it would stop safeguarding, in the geolocation history of its users, visits to clinics practicing abortion, but also in many sensitive places, such as homes For victims of domestic violence, fertility clinics or addiction treatment centers. “If our systems detect that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from the location history shortly after”, explains Google in a press release , adding that this new rule” will take effect in the next weeks “. The firm does not specify, on the other hand, if this decision only concerns its American users or if it is intended to be applied worldwide.
sensitive data
This announcement comes as Google, like many American tech giants, has been summoned for several weeks to take steps to prevent data from its users to be used by the authorities to suppress abortion.
Geolocation data, for example, could be requested by justice to determine if a person went to a clinic practicing abortion. They could also be used if states that are about to prohibit or restrict abortion also seek to punish going to a neighboring state to interrupt a pregnancy. In March, anticipating the future decision of the Supreme Court, elected Democrats had asked Google to limit the collection of geolocation data to protect its users.