Google announced Friday that it will delete its users’ location history whenever they visit an abortion clinic, domestic violence shelter or other similarly sensitive place, responding publicly for the first time to calls for the data giant to limit the amount of information it collects . it could be used by law enforcement for abortion investigations and prosecutions. “If our systems detect that someone has visited one of these places, we’ll delete those records from Location History immediately after they visit,” Jen Fitzpatrick, a senior Google executive, said in a blog post. The blog post also reiterates Google’s position that it fights back against what it considers excessive or illegal government data requests, but does not specifically say how the company will respond to abortion-related requests. Google already allows its users to completely disable location tracking. Abortion is illegal for millions. Will Big Tech help prosecute? Google and other big tech companies have come under pressure in the past week to make clear how they will respond to such requests. Google already responds to hundreds of search warrants every day in the United States, turning over its customers’ emails, location data and documents stored in the cloud. As law enforcement agencies become more tech-savvy, they are increasingly using the vast amount of data collected by Big Tech to enhance investigations and prosecutions. Privacy advocates have long pointed out that these same tactics could be applied to abortion investigations, a hypothetical situation that has now become a reality after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Google has fought the government on other data collection issues in the past, including pushing back against the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection programs a decade ago. Any battle between tech companies and governments over data collection should be made public so that regular people and privacy advocates can have their say, too, said Megan Graham, an attorney at the Law, Technology & Samuelson Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley who advises public defense attorneys on technology and privacy issues. OK, Google: To protect women, collect less data for everyone “I hope that if Google makes the decision to start pushing when they get them, whether it’s in the context of abortion or otherwise, that they do it publicly,” Graham said. “Google’s voice is obviously important in the conversation because they have the data and they’re the ones running the search, but their interests aren’t necessarily the same as the general public or people who care about privacy rights.” Caroline O’Donovan contributed to this report.
