Big Tech silent on data privacy in post-Roe America
Period- and fertility-tracking apps have become weapons in Friday's post-Roe America.
These seemingly innocuous trackers contain tons of data about sexual history, menstruation and pregnancy dates, all of which could now be used to prosecute women seeking abortions — or incite digital witch hunts in states that offer abortion bounties.
"We are just a few steps away from digital dragnets for people who are providing access and possibly for people seeking abortions," EFF Director of Cybersecurity Eva Galperin told The Register.
And fertility-tracking apps are just the tip of the digital surveillance iceberg.
Yes, they are "often a privacy and/or security nightmare," Galperin said. "They track a lot of various sensitive health data including data about whether a person is potentially pregnant." But, she added, there's a bigger concern.
"The single greatest danger right now is the location data sale industry, location data brokers, and also the privacy of your web searches," Galperin said. "One of the very first steps that people take when they are searching for abortion information is a web search."
The second step often includes mapping out a health clinic, or a drug store that could be visited to pick up an abortion pill.
However, more than just maps collect location data. All sorts of apps, from weather to retail, use devices' GPS technology to track users' locations and unless someone opts out, these trackers can pinpoint exactly where a user is without any manual data entry.
Location data company Placer.ai, for example, claims its software is deployed on more than 20 million devices and over 500 mobile applications. Ostensibly, this location data is to allow, say, Target to display targeted ads to devices about nearby stores. But it's also a multi-billion-dollar market, and this location data — including health and reproductive information — can be collected, bought, and sold without users' knowledge.
"Companies gather this data, sell it to data brokers, and the data brokers sell it to third parties and sometimes fourth and fifth parties until they can no longer keep track of where that data is — and that is very concerning," Galperin said.
Last month, as it became increasingly clear that constitutional abortion protections would soon be eliminated, EFF warned that "service providers can expect a raft of subpoenas and warrants seeking user data that could be employed to prosecute abortion seekers, providers, and helpers."
The online civil liberties organization also told technology firms to "expect pressure to aggressively police the use of their services," along with new demands to hand over information to law enforcement as this data "may be classified in many states as facilitating a crime."
These seemingly innocuous trackers contain tons of data about sexual history, menstruation and pregnancy dates, all of which could now be used to prosecute women seeking abortions — or incite digital witch hunts in states that offer abortion bounties.
"We are just a few steps away from digital dragnets for people who are providing access and possibly for people seeking abortions," EFF Director of Cybersecurity Eva Galperin told The Register.
And fertility-tracking apps are just the tip of the digital surveillance iceberg.
Yes, they are "often a privacy and/or security nightmare," Galperin said. "They track a lot of various sensitive health data including data about whether a person is potentially pregnant." But, she added, there's a bigger concern.
"The single greatest danger right now is the location data sale industry, location data brokers, and also the privacy of your web searches," Galperin said. "One of the very first steps that people take when they are searching for abortion information is a web search."
The second step often includes mapping out a health clinic, or a drug store that could be visited to pick up an abortion pill.
However, more than just maps collect location data. All sorts of apps, from weather to retail, use devices' GPS technology to track users' locations and unless someone opts out, these trackers can pinpoint exactly where a user is without any manual data entry.
Location data company Placer.ai, for example, claims its software is deployed on more than 20 million devices and over 500 mobile applications. Ostensibly, this location data is to allow, say, Target to display targeted ads to devices about nearby stores. But it's also a multi-billion-dollar market, and this location data — including health and reproductive information — can be collected, bought, and sold without users' knowledge.
"Companies gather this data, sell it to data brokers, and the data brokers sell it to third parties and sometimes fourth and fifth parties until they can no longer keep track of where that data is — and that is very concerning," Galperin said.
Last month, as it became increasingly clear that constitutional abortion protections would soon be eliminated, EFF warned that "service providers can expect a raft of subpoenas and warrants seeking user data that could be employed to prosecute abortion seekers, providers, and helpers."
The online civil liberties organization also told technology firms to "expect pressure to aggressively police the use of their services," along with new demands to hand over information to law enforcement as this data "may be classified in many states as facilitating a crime."
Spoiler Look after yourself :
