After the Roe v. Wade rejection, technology companies are at the center of attention. Since tech companies have access to enormous data, including health and location, officials and abortion seekers are worried about misusing this data. FTC is now stepping in to crack down on data exploitation.
FTC safeguards abortion seekers’ location and health data in post-Roe
According to the FTC announcement, the agency is “committed to using the full scope of its legal authorities” to protect consumers’ privacy. It warns that the period and fertility apps can expose users to harm. Likewise, any other app that collects users’ location and health data can be a potential danger. Dates back to July 8th, Biden Administration ordered FTC to take necessary measures to protect the data of abortion seekers. However, privacy experts say that the police can use location tracking to identify the people who are visiting abortion clinics. Of course, this will happen in the states where abortion is illegal. “The Commission is committed to using the full scope of its legal authorities to protect consumers’ privacy. We will vigorously enforce the law if we uncover illegal conduct that exploits Americans’ location, health, or other sensitive data. The FTC’s past enforcement actions provide a roadmap for firms seeking to comply with the law,” the FTC’s acting associate director in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, Kristin Cohen, noted in the blog post. On the heels of this, Google recently announced it will remove the abortion clinics and other health facilities from users’ location history “soon after they visit.” However, authorities still have many other ways to identify people who visit abortion clinics. The period-tracking apps, fitness trackers, GPS map apps, and search histories are some common methods for identifying abortion seekers. Some period-tracking apps also have a bad recode of sharing user’s data with third parties. A few years ago, the famous period-tracking app Flo came under fire for sharing the private data with outside parties.
