The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to overturn the Roe v Wade case is sure to set off a wave of new state legislation targeting abortion rights, to reinforce existing laws that prohibit and, in some cases, criminalize abortion. procedure. Among the broad possible implications of the decision are concerns about the potential use of personal data to punish people seeking information or access to abortion services online.
In some of the more restrictive states, digital rights experts warn that people’s search histories, location data, messages and other digital information can be used by law enforcement agencies investigating or prosecuting abortion-related cases.
On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, the 50-year ruling that guaranteed a person’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability (usually around 24 weeks). A draft opinion was leaked in May. It is hoped that overturning the 1973 court ruling will transform the reproductive health landscape in the United States, leaving abortion policy to individual states and potentially paving the way for more than 20 states to pass new laws restricting abortion.
Even before the decision, concerns about the digital privacy implications of abortion restrictions began to surface in recent years amid a move by Republican-controlled states, including Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, to pass laws that severely restrict abortion. service access.
The United States is a very different place today than it was in the pre-Roe era: due to the pervasiveness of the internet and mobile technology, people today share vast amounts of data about themselves – whether they realize it or not – opening the door to a significant surveillance.
The possibility of a complex patchwork of state laws following the rollback of Roe v Wade raises a number of new questions about the everyday technology Americans use to make healthcare decisions and how it can be used to enforce those laws, in addition to to create confusion about what online behavior is allowed or not.
For example, in states that make it a crime to help a woman seeking an abortion, data from women’s period or pregnancy tracking apps could end up being recorded as evidence against the person who helped them, says Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Cambridge. from Virginia and author of the upcoming book “The Fight for Privacy”.
“Let’s say you got your period, stopped your period, and got your period again in no time,” Citron said. “IT IS [potencial] evidence of your own criminal behavior, or that of your doctor.”
Groups promoting digital rights and reproductive freedoms are now warning people in states that criminalize access to abortion to protect their digital footprints by seeking abortion information and resources online and sharing tips on how to protect that information.
“We are living in a much more guarded culture than we were in 1972 and before, so in a future where abortion rights are limited or there is no federal right, people will be at risk of exercising their bodily autonomy,” Elisabeth Smith said. , director of State Policies and Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “The consequences of these decisions are likely to fall more on blacks, pardos and indigenous people.”
A growing number of US lawmakers have expressed concern about the potential misuse of advertising data to prosecute people seeking abortion. In May, dozens of Democratic lawmakers wrote to Google saying the company’s practice of collecting and storing vast amounts of geolocation data from cell phones “will allow it to become a tool for far-right supporters seeking to crack down on people seeking health care.” reproductive”.
And on June 24, the same day the Supreme Court dropped the Roe v Wade case, another group of US lawmakers wrote to the Federal Trade Commission saying Apple and Google should face an agency investigation into ad practices. which, according to them, could end up harming those who seek abortion.
“Data brokers are already selling, licensing and sharing location information from people visiting abortion clinics to anyone with a credit card. Prosecutors in states where abortion is illegal will soon be able to get warrants to obtain information on the location of anyone who has visited an abortion clinic,” wrote the group, which includes Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker. and Congresswoman Sara Jacobs.
“The Federal Trade Commission must investigate the role of Apple and Google in transforming online advertising into an intense surveillance system that encourages and facilitates the rampant collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data.”
A lot has also changed in the reproductive health landscape since Roe v Wade was decided in 1973. Self-administered abortions and online pharmacies that provide abortion medicines are increasingly affordable options, especially for low-income people or those in rural areas or states that restrict access to face-to-face abortion services. In December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted a requirement that patients seeking abortion medications pick them up in person, allowing pills to be mailed.
While several states, including Texas, prohibit receiving abortion medications through telemedicine, this does not necessarily prevent pharmacies and online services in other countries from shipping the medications to people in those states.
Various online behaviors can become part of investigations and prosecutions in states that criminalize aiding access to abortions. According to Cynthia Conti-Cook, a civil rights attorney and technology fellow at the Ford Foundation, this includes internet searches, location history, call and text message logs, emails and financial records. Any part of a person’s digital footprint is an easy target when a device is in police possession, she said.
“As long as abortion and abortion-related conduct is criminalized, all that information can be an easy target,” Conti-Cook told CNN . She added that law enforcement officers have the forensic tools at their disposal to view virtually everything a person does on their device – but only when the device is in their possession. Unless it is voluntarily surrendered, a phone and all of its data cannot normally be accessed without a search warrant.
Various state laws governing abortion care raise new questions about what role internet use can play for an abortion seeker. “In states like Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, if someone orders pills online, they’re doing it outside the law of that state,” Smith said. “As they have banned telemedicine and more states are passing laws that prohibit possession of abortion medication, there is a risk of criminalization when people do not follow their state’s laws.”
Some lawmakers have even introduced proposals that would effectively ban citizens from getting abortions out of state. Missouri State Representative Elizabeth Coleman is pushing for a clause that would allow citizens to sue anyone who “helps or incites” a Missouri resident to have an abortion, including out-of-state doctors, friends who help arrange transportation or even lodging. a website that “encourages or facilitates the efforts” of Missouri residents to obtain elective abortions. And other states may follow suit.
The law may also use so-called geographic search warrants, which ask internet companies to list devices within a certain area at a given time. These warrants are gaining popularity as a law enforcement tool for various alleged crimes – the number of geosearch-related warrants submitted to Google by US police departments has increased from 982 in 2018 to 11,554 in 2020, according to the latest report. company transparency. (In turn, Google says that, in some cases, it requests to provide less information or refuses to provide such information.)
In at least one case, search history data has already been used to process people seeking information about abortion services. In 2018, Latice Fisher was indicted by a Mississippi court of judges for second-degree murder following a pregnancy loss at home. Although the criminal charges against Fisher were dropped, police pointed to alleged internet search results such as “buying abortion pills” to argue her case.
In anticipation of the passage of more restrictive laws, advocacy groups are promoting digital privacy education and sharing information on how to safely seek reproductive health services online. This includes tips on how to disable personalized ads on Google and social media sites to minimize tracking, disable location sharing, and use privacy-focused browsers that do not save search data, collect personal information, or allow third-party trackers.
When looking for miscarriage information, the guide also recommends using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps to keep calls and messages private (these apps also offer automatic message deletion capabilities).
Unlike a phone company with access to SMS text messages, the developers of these apps cannot access the contents of encrypted messages and therefore cannot be compelled by a court to share them.
Other privacy measures to protect internet browsing include the use of browsers or incognito windows or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
While it’s nearly impossible to completely hide digital history, experts say these methods can help minimize risk and make it harder to seize data.
*With information from Brian Fung of CNN
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.
