Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Google stepped up protection from user location tracking that would trigger legal issues from states that prohibit termination of pregnancies.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade could make abortion illegal in more than a dozen states, raising the specter that people’s location records, text messages, searches and emails they could be used in court proceedings against abortion procedures or even for medical care requested in a miscarriage.
Google outlined in a blog post on Friday its new policies to protect users’ privacy when visiting “sensitive” health-related locations, including abortion clinics and domestic violence shelters .
Likewise , Google is expected to automatically remove location information from users who visit abortion clinics.
“We are committed to providing strong privacy protections for people who use our products, and we will continue to seek new ways to strengthen and improve these protections,” said Jen Fitzpatrick, senior vice president of Core Systems and Engagement at Google. e.
Apart from automatically removing visits to abortion clinics, Google also flagged counseling centers, addiction facilities, fertility centers, weight loss clinics, and pregnancy clinics. cosmetic surgery as other destinations that will be deleted from the history and location of users.
“Today we are announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these locations, we will remove hospital entries from locations shortly after the visit. That change will go into effect in the next few weeks,” Fitzpatrick continued.
Google is also updating its app store protocols around data privacy to give people more information about how apps share, collect, and aggregate their data.
With information from Fox Business