-Eldica Stuart-
Cousins!
In Technology news, a week after overturning Roe v. Wade new abortion law, Google has stated that they will delete search entries from a person’s location history if they “Google”search a site of an abortion clinic.!
Legislators and the public have been on strike about the overturning since the decision was made and it has put pressure on the search engine about handling data privacy. It is unclear as to whom will search someone’s cellular device to view their location for abortions. The tracking of locations is also unclear.
Google’s senior Vice President of core systems and experiences, Jenn Fitzpatrick, wrote in a blog post:
“Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit,” he also continued that “visits to places like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics and fertility centers “can be particularly personal.”
According to CNBC, the Google post says, “Fitbit users who have chosen to track their menstrual cycles in the app can currently delete menstruation logs one at a time, and we will be rolling out updates that let users delete multiple logs at once.”
Meanwhile, before the overturning it has been a legal precedent for over 50 years and now abortion is illegal ending women’s constitutional right to do so.
Although Google sent an email to their employees about abortion resources despite the Roe vs Wade decision, they are still being questioned about search results and privacy.
As we previously reported the controversial ruling was made in June 2022, but since May 2022, a group of Democratic lawmakers urged Google CEO to stop collecting and keeping location data identifying people who were looking for abortion sites. Google did not mention how they would respond to law enforcement about the search, but they did mention that locations would be shared with multiple institutions.