As state laws limiting abortion kick in
after the ruling, technology trade representatives told Reuters they fear
police will obtain warrants for customers' search history, geolocation and
other information indicating plans to terminate a pregnancy. Prosecutors could
access the same via a subpoena, too.
The concern reflects how the data
collection practices of companies like Alphabet's Google, Facebook parent Meta
Platforms and Amazon have the potential to incriminate abortion-seekers for
state laws that many in Silicon Valley oppose.
"It is very likely that there's going
to be requests made to those tech companies for information related to search
histories, to websites visited," said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a technology
fellow at the Ford Foundation.
Google declined to comment. Representatives
for Amazon and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Technology has long gathered — and at times
revealed — sensitive pregnancy-related information about consumers. In 2015,
abortion opponents targeted ads saying 'Pregnancy Help' and 'You Have Choices'
to individuals entering reproductive health clinics, using so-called geofencing
technology to identify smartphones in the area.
More recently, Mississippi prosecutors
charged a mother with second-degree murder after her smartphone showed she had
searched for abortion medication in her third trimester, local media reported.
Conti-Cook said, "I can't even imagine the depth of information that my
phone has on my life."
While suspects unwittingly can hand over
their phones and volunteer information used to prosecute them, investigators
may well turn to tech companies in the absence of strong leads or evidence. In
United States vs Chatrie, for example, police obtained a warrant) for Google
location data that led them to Okello Chatrie in an investigation of a 2019
bank robbery.
Amazon, for instance, complied at least
partially with 75 percent of search warrants, subpoenas and other court orders
demanding data on the US customers, the company disclosed for the three years
ending in June 2020. It complied fully with 38 percent. Amazon has said it must
comply with "valid and binding orders," but its goal is to provide
"the minimum" that the law requires.
Eva Galperin, cybersecurity director at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, said on Twitter on Friday, "The difference
between now and the last time that abortion was illegal in the United States is
that we live in an era of unprecedented digital surveillance." © Reuters
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