{"id":104,"date":"2023-07-15T09:37:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-15T09:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onsuswp.themesflat.co\/?p=104"},"modified":"2024-11-01T18:44:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T18:44:16","slug":"google-urged-to-stop-tracking-location-data-ahead-of-roe-reversal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/google-urged-to-stop-tracking-location-data-ahead-of-roe-reversal\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Urged to Stop Tracking Location Data Ahead of\u00a0Roe\u00a0Reversal"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Lawmakers argue Android phone data could be \u201cweaponized against women\u201d if the US Supreme Court officially overturns abortion protections.<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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MORE THAN 40 Democratic members of Congress called on Google to stop collecting and retaining customer location data that prosecutors could use to identify women who obtain abortions.

\u201cWe are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google\u2019s 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. That\u2019s because Google stores historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies,\u201d Democrats wrote May 24 in a letter led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). The letter was sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Specifically, Google should stop collecting \u201cunnecessary customer location data\u201d or \u201cany non-aggregate location data about individual customers, whether in identifiable or anonymized form. Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against women,\u201d lawmakers wrote. They also told Google that people who use iPhones \u201chave greater privacy from government surveillance of their movements than the tens of millions of Americans using Android devices.\u201d

The draft Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade could be followed by strict limits or bans on abortion in many states, and Democrats wrote that \u201cRepublicans in Congress are already discussing passing a law criminalizing abortion in all 50 states, putting the government in control of women\u2019s bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Location Data From Android Phones<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In their letter, Democrats told Pichai:

While Google deserves credit for being one of the first companies in America to insist on a warrant before disclosing location data to law enforcement, that is not enough. If abortion is made illegal by the far-right Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers, it is inevitable that right-wing prosecutors will obtain legal warrants to hunt down, prosecute, and jail women for obtaining critical reproductive health care. The only way to protect your customers\u2019 location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place.

Google obtains detailed information \u201cfrom Android smartphones, which collect and transmit location information to Google, regardless of whether the phone is being used or which app a user has open,\u201d they wrote. While Android users have to opt into this data collection, \u201cGoogle has designed its Android operating system so that consumers can only enable third party apps to access location data if they also allow Google to receive their location data too. In contrast, Google is only able to collect location data from users of iPhones when they are using the Google Maps app,\u201d the lawmakers wrote.

We contacted Google about the letter yesterday and will update this article if we get a response.

Exactly how Google\u2019s location privacy settings work has been a matter of confusion, even for some Google employees. As we wrote in August 2020, documents from a consumer fraud suit the state of Arizona filed against Google \u201cshow that company employees knew and discussed among themselves that the company\u2019s location privacy settings were confusing and potentially misleading.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Democrats Say iPhone Users Have More Privacy<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Because many of the cheaper smartphones use Android, the lawmakers warned of a \u201cdigital divide\u201d affecting the privacy of people with low incomes:

No law requires Google to collect and keep records of its customers\u2019 every movement. Apple has shown that it is not necessary for smartphone companies to retain invasive tracking databases of their customers\u2019 locations. Google\u2019s intentional choice to do so is creating a new digital divide, in which privacy and security are made a luxury. Americans who can afford an iPhone have greater privacy from government surveillance of their movements than the tens of millions of Americans using Android devices.

While Google uses location data to target online ads, the company often turns over the data to law enforcement officials who obtain court orders, the Democrats wrote. \u201cThis includes dragnet \u2018geofence\u2019 orders demanding data about everyone who was near a particular location at a given time,\u201d they wrote, adding that \u201cGoogle received 11,554 geofence warrants in 2020.\u201d

iPhones also use location services, though the lawmakers seem to be satisfied with Apple\u2019s privacy promises. Among other things, Apple says that if location services are turned on, geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers are sent \u201cin an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple\u201d to augment a \u201ccrowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations.\u201d

With the Find My feature that can locate lost devices, Apple says it \u201cretains location information and makes it accessible to you for 24 hours, after which it is deleted\u201d and that \u201cdevice location services information is stored on each individual device and Apple cannot retrieve this information from any specific device.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Post-Roe State Abortion Laws <\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Assuming the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, there could be more state laws like the recently enacted Texas Heartbeat Act that bans abortions after it\u2019s possible to detect a \u201cfetal heartbeat.\u201d The law defines that as \u201ccardiac activity or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart within the gestational sac.\u201d This effectively bans abortions after six weeks, and the state law lets private citizens file lawsuits to obtain injunctions and damages of at least $10,000 per abortion.

These lawsuits could be filed against anyone who \u201cperforms or induces an abortion\u201d that violates the Texas Heartbeat Act or anyone who \u201cknowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets\u201d an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Aiding or abetting includes \u201cpaying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subchapter.\u201d Civil suits can also be filed against anyone who \u201cintends to engage in the conduct\u201d described in the law.

The Texas law doesn\u2019t allow the exact scenario Democrats warned of in their letter, that prosecutors could jail women who obtain abortions. But states would have more leeway to enact stricter anti-abortion laws or bans after lifting Roe v. Wade.

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group, says that \u201c26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion without Roe.\u201d Many of these states have laws that were enacted before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and never removed, laws that were enacted after Roe but currently blocked by court order, or \u201ctrigger\u201d bans that would \u201ctake effect automatically or by quick state action if Roe no longer applies.\u201d

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers argue Android phone data could be \u201cweaponized against women\u201d if the US Supreme Court officially overturns abortion protections. MORE THAN 40 Democratic members of Congress called on Google to stop collecting and retaining customer location data that prosecutors could use to identify women who obtain abortions. \u201cWe are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google\u2019s current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zomngo.com\/Home\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}