Google says it will delete location history for visits to abortion clinics, medical sites
Google said late Friday that it would work to quickly delete location history for people going to abortion sites and other medical sites following the Supreme C
Google said late Friday that it would work to quickly delete location history for people going to abortion sites and other medical sites following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last week.
“Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit,” wrote Jen Fitzpatrick, Google’s senior vice president of core systems and experiences, in a blog post.
Fitzpatrick noted that visits to places like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics and fertility centers “can be particularly personal.” Google parent, Alphabet, owns highly popular devices and data services, including Android, Fitbit, Search and Google Maps. That’s become a greater concern since the Supreme Court ruling, because of uncertainty surrounding whether sensitive data could be used to target what is now potentially criminal activity.
Google’s post says, “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.”
The decision from the nation’s highest court overturned nearly 50 years of legal precedent by reversing its original opinion that women have a constitutional right to abortion. For weeks, Google and other tech companies have avoided answering questions from the media and legislators about their data storage and practices, as well as how they will comply with potential requests from law enforcement.
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