Google says it’ll begin robotically deleting visits to abortion clinics, home violence shelters, weight reduction clinics, and different probably delicate places from customers’ location histories within the coming weeks. In a weblog publish on Friday, the corporate says that the deletion will occur “quickly after” the go to, as soon as its methods have recognized {that a} journey was made to one of many places. This alteration is occurring within the wake of the Supreme Court docket’s resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade and the strikes a number of states have instantly made to outlaw abortions.
You too can flip off Google’s location logging altogether by following its directions here.
Google’s publish, entitled “Defending individuals’s privateness on well being subjects,” additionally mentions that there’s an replace coming for Fitbit that may allow you to delete a number of menstruation logs directly in the event you’ve been utilizing the well being monitoring characteristic.
These privateness updates are supposed to take away choose information from Google’s servers that may very well be used to prosecute individuals for in search of care, however the firm nonetheless shops lots of different information about your actions. Search and YouTube histories is also used as proof in investigations, and Google’s publish doesn’t point out something about these. We’ve reached out to Google to ask about some other steps it might be taking to guard customers’ information.
Whereas Google legally has to adjust to sure authorities calls for for information (and may very well be compelled to show over logs in the event that they exist), the corporate reiterates that it’s going to “proceed to oppose calls for which can be overly broad or in any other case legally objectionable.” Google additionally says that it’s going to notify customers when it provides their information to the federal government, except it’s been ordered not to take action or there’s a urgent safety concern.
Knowledge privateness issues round abortion transcend Google: official medical data aren’t as non-public as many people assume, and all the things from textual content messages and buy data may very well be used towards you in court docket. Plus, the corporate isn’t essentially the one entity preserving tabs on the place your smartphone has been. For more information, you may learn our article that goes in depth on the privateness dangers that individuals in search of care could now face.
