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Google said on Friday it will delete its users’ location history whenever they visit an abortion clinic, domestic violence shelter or other similarly sensitive location, responding publicly for the first time to calls for the data giant to limit the amount of information it collects may be used by law enforcement to investigate and prosecute abortions.
“If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these locations, we will delete those records from Location History soon after they visit,” Google senior executive Jen Fitzpatrick said in a blog post.
The blog post also reiterated Google’s position that it opposes what it sees as overly broad or illegal government data requests, but did not say specifically how the company would respond to abortion-related requests. Google now allows its users to completely turn off location tracking.
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Google and other major tech companies have come under pressure in the past week to clarify 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 increasingly use the vast amounts of data collected by Big Tech to aid investigations and prosecutions.
Privacy advocates have long argued that these same tactics could be applied to abortion investigations, a hypothetical situation that has now become a reality after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Google has battled the government on other data collection issues before, such as 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 played out publicly so that ordinary people and privacy advocates can also have their say, said Megan Graham, an attorney at the Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic Samuelson at the University of California, Berkeley, who advises public defenders on technology and privacy issues.
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“I hope that if Google does decide to start pushing back when they get them, whether it’s in the context of abortion or otherwise, they’ll do it publicly,” Graham said. “Google’s voice is obviously important in the discussion because they have the data and they’re the ones driving the searches, but their interests aren’t necessarily the same as the general public or people who are concerned about privacy rights.”
Other tech companies face the same questions as Google. Facebook leaders have discussed legal strategies to respond to the ruling since a draft version leaked in May, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. At Amazon, an employee petition asking the company to take a tougher stance on abortion rights and stop giving money to anti-abortion politicians has received more than 1,500 signatures. On Friday, some Amazon employees called in sick to protest the company’s silence on the matter.
Caroline O’Donovan contributed to this report.
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