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Shortly after the Alito leak, grounded paranoia made its rounds about social media. Folks took to the Twitter and Instagram making information threads to prepare for the rough Dobbs ahead. During that planning, there was a concern that as having a uterus became criminalized, data collected from period tracking apps would be the first to testify against you in court.
The response to such suspicions has been swift.
Thankfully, another large player is looking to give a bit of help — Google:
A woman’s search history, location data, and app information can easily be used by authorities to find out if she’s pregnant, considering, or going through with an abortion…On Friday, the company announced it’ll automatically erase visits to abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters, weight loss clinics, and other potentially sensitive locations from users’ location history in the coming weeks.
Google’s post also mentions an important update for Fitbit:
Fitbit users who have chosen to track their menstrual cycles in the app can currently delete menstruation logs one at a time, and we will be rolling out updates that let users delete multiple logs at once.
This is not an absolute right — the jury is out on if other information like one’s search history, Facebook communications, or one of the many other ways of digitally tracing thoughts and actions. At this point, its very hard to avoid soft snitching.
As great as Google’s half pledge is, it is important to remain vigilant. The solution(s) needed for this problem are something that corporations, despite their apparent good will, are not equipped to offer us.
Sure would be nice to get an American version of GDPR up and running.
Google Will Delete Abortion Clinic Location History — But Don’t Relax Just Yet [The Next Web]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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