This transformation will take impact within the coming weeks.
United States:
Google introduced Friday it might delete customers’ location historical past after they go to abortion clinics, home violence shelters and different locations the place privateness is sought.
“If our methods determine that somebody has visited one in every of these locations, we’ll delete these entries from Location Historical past quickly after they go to,” Jen Fitzpatrick, a senior vp at Google, wrote in a weblog submit. “This transformation will take impact within the coming weeks.”
Different locations from which Google won’t retailer location knowledge embrace fertility facilities, habit remedy amenities, and weight reduction clinics.
The announcement comes every week after the US Supreme Court docket made the tectonic determination to strip American girls of constitutional rights to abortion, main a dozen states to ban or severely limit the process and prompting mass protests throughout the nation.
Activists and politicians have been calling on Google and different tech giants to restrict the quantity of knowledge they gather to keep away from it being utilized by legislation enforcement for abortion investigations and prosecutions.
Fitzpatrick additionally sought to reassure customers that the corporate takes knowledge privateness significantly.
“Google has a protracted monitor report of pushing again on overly broad calls for from legislation enforcement, together with objecting to some calls for completely,” she wrote.
“We keep in mind the privateness and safety expectations of individuals utilizing our merchandise, and we notify folks after we adjust to authorities calls for.”
Considerations over smartphone knowledge and reproductive rights arose even earlier than the Supreme Court docket ruling, when a number of conservative US states in current months handed legal guidelines that give members of the general public the best to sue medical doctors who carry out abortions — or anybody who helps facilitate them.
That led a bunch of high Democratic lawmakers in Might to ship a letter to Google chief govt Sundar Pichai, asking him to cease amassing smartphone location knowledge lest it change into “a software for far-right extremists trying to crack down on folks in search of reproductive well being care.”
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
