Concerns have been raised regarding the possible use of personal data to penalize people who seek information about or access to abortion services online as a result of a wave of new legislation targeting abortion rights across the country.
A group of lawmakers has requested Google to stop collecting and storing location data from its users, claiming that it may be used to track down those seeking abortions.
Forty-two Democratic and independent senators and members of Congress signed a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, which was published Tuesday.
"We are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google's current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care," the letter said.
According to the letter, Google stores location data from hundreds of millions of phones and shares it with government authorities.
If abortion is made illegal, law enforcement agencies may be able to seek warrants from Google to access people's phone location records.
Digital rights experts warn that law enforcement agencies investigating or prosecuting abortion-related cases may access people's search histories, location data, texts, and other digital information in some of the most restrictive states.
Concerns about the impact of abortion restrictions on internet privacy come amid a recent push by Republican-controlled states including Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma to implement legislation severely restricting access to the service. They take on added significance after the Supreme Court draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, which ensures a person's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability, was leaked on Monday.
Overturning the historic 1973 court decision would change the face of reproductive health in America, leaving abortion policy up to individual states and perhaps opening the door for more than 20 states to establish new abortion restrictions.
Groups advocating digital rights and reproductive freedoms are now reminding people in jurisdictions where giving abortion access is illegal to protect their digital fingerprints when seeking abortion information and resources online, and sharing recommendations on how to do so.
Search history data has already been used to prosecute persons who seek information about abortion services in at least one case. After an at-home pregnancy loss, Latice Fisher was indicted for second degree murder by a Mississippi Grand Jury in 2018.
While Fisher's criminal charges were eventually dropped, authorities used purported internet search results such as "buy abortion pills, mifeprisone online, misoprostol online" to support their case.
