“We are concerned that, in a world where abortion could be made illegal, Google’s current practice of collecting and storing extensive data about cell phone location data will become a tool for far-right extremists who want to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care,” the lawmakers wrote.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tuesday’s letter follows the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would quash Roe v. Wade and reaffirm the ability of state lawmakers to pass laws that criminalize abortion. Civil liberties and reproductive rights advocates have warned that requests for data by law enforcement, submitted to tech platforms, could facilitate a crackdown on abortion seekers and potentially those who help them.
On Tuesday, lawmakers called on Google to scale back its practices so that it “no longer collects unnecessary customer location data, nor does it store non-aggregated location data about individual customers.”
“No law requires Google to collect and track every movement of its customers,” the letter continues. “Apple has shown that there is no need for smartphone companies to maintain invasive tracking databases of their customers’ locations. Google’s conscious choice to do this is to create a new digital divide, in which privacy and security are a luxury. have become.”
