Google will delete location history for visits to abortion clinics

Google mentioned late Friday that it’ll work to rapidly delete location historical past for individuals going to abortion websites and different medical websites following the Supreme Courtroom’s overturning of Roe v. Wade final week.

“Right now, we’re saying that if our programs 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,” wrote Jen Fitzpatrick, Google’s senior vp of core programs and experiences, in a weblog submit.

Fitzpatrick famous that visits to locations like counseling facilities, home violence shelters, abortion clinics and fertility facilities “will be notably private.” Google mother or father Alphabet owns extremely in style gadgets and knowledge companies, together with Android, Fitbit, Search and Google Maps. That is develop into a larger concern for the reason that Supreme Courtroom ruling, due to uncertainty surrounding whether or not delicate knowledge could possibly be used to focus on what’s now probably legal exercise.

Google’s submit says, “Fitbit customers who’ve chosen to trace their menstrual cycles within the app can at present delete menstruation logs one after the other, and we can be rolling out updates that permit customers delete a number of logs directly.”

The choice from the nation’s highest court docket overturned practically 50 years of authorized precedent by reversing its authentic opinion that ladies have a constitutional proper to an abortion. For weeks, Google and different tech corporations have averted answering questions from the media and legislators about their knowledge storage and practices in addition to how they are going to adjust to potential legislation enforcement requests.

Google, which despatched an electronic mail to workers with assets for its personal workers amid the ruling, has additionally confronted questions on its search outcomes along with knowledge privateness.

Even earlier than the choice grew to become official, lawmakers known as on Google and the Federal Commerce Fee to make sure knowledge for on-line shoppers looking for care could be protected within the occasion that the landmark ruling was overturned.

In Might, a bunch of 42 Democratic lawmakers urged Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a letter to cease accumulating and preserving pointless or non-aggregated location knowledge that could possibly be used to determine individuals looking for abortions. 

Google’s Friday submit didn’t say how it might reply to potential requests from legislation enforcement. As a substitute, the corporate mentioned it might “proceed to oppose calls for which are overly broad or in any other case legally objectionable.”

Google additionally mentioned the the duty is shared by many establishments.

“On condition that these points apply to healthcare suppliers, telecommunications corporations, banks, tech platforms, and plenty of extra, we all know privateness protections can’t be solely as much as particular person corporations or states performing individually,” the submit mentioned.

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