Abortion: Google wants to secure data

Google announced (July 1) that users’ location data would be automatically deleted when visiting an abortion clinic. “If our systems identify that a person has visited a (sensitive) establishment, we will delete those entries from location history shortly after their visit,” said Jen Fitzpatrick, a vice president of the California group, in a statement. This decision comes a week after the Supreme Court of the United States revoked the federal right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion). Elected Democrats and human rights groups fear that the personal information of women who have had abortions, or of caregivers and people who allegedly helped them, will be used against them by conservative state prosecutors having banned abortion. Elected officials and associations have therefore been calling for weeks on the major technological platforms to no longer keep so much personal data, from online research on abortion to travel on applications like Google Maps.

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