Civil rights advocates and students have expressed concerns over the possible privacy and discrimination issues against people seeking abortions following the US Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade.
One lawyer pointed out the possibility of authorities using Google to prosecute abortion seekers.
Albert Fox Cahn, a lawyer and executive director of the advocacy group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said, "Google is increasingly the cornerstone of American policing."
More than 50,000 subpoenas, search warrants, and other legal requests for data were sent to Google in the first half of 2021. These requests occasionally drew from the massive, centralized "Sensorvault" database of users' location histories, which was first disclosed by the New York Times in 2019.
According to an NPR report, the use of geofence warrants and keyword warrants, two particularly contentious data requests, have increased as law enforcement agencies investigating crimes have become more tech adept.
Geofence warrants request information about every device that entered a particular area within a given time frame, such as a bank that had recently been robbed, a house that had recently been set ablaze, or an abortion clinic after the Supreme Court's decision.
Keyword warrants are a type of digital dragnet that have long upset privacy advocates and are now alarming proponents of abortion rights. They ask for information on everyone who has Googled specified search phrases.
Privacy experts consider keyword search warrants as a type of fishing expedition that violates user privacy. Cahn describes it as "the equivalent of going to a library and then trying to search every person who checked out a specific book."
Cahn noted: "It is so chilling. It is so broad. It is so contrary to our civil rights. And yet, because Google has so much of our data, it's just a ticking time bomb for pregnant people."
Legal experts believe the possibility should be taken seriously even if it's uncertain whether state authorities will attempt to prosecute abortion-seekers and utilize digital files as part of such probable prosecutions.
In the actual world, such an extensive search would violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on illegal searches, according to Cahn. However, courts are still lagging in terms of technology.
Students Express Fears About Strict Abortion Laws
The restrictions on abortion have some students worried that they would not be able to get the procedure if they need it or that they will be discriminated against because of their gender. Others expressed concern about encountering racial prejudice or political exclusion.
College advisors reported that after Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion has come up frequently in interactions with clients, with some customers even going so far as to reject their top choices for colleges, as per a Reuters report.
According to Daniel Santos, chief executive of the Florida college counseling company Prepory, some of their students have "explicitly stated that they will not apply to colleges and universities in states which may infringe on their access to reproductive rights."
Kristen Willmott, a counselor with Top Tier Admissions in Massachusetts, noted that students she works with have told her they are dropping several prestigious institutions in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee off their application lists because of those states' stringent abortion laws,
Sabrina Thaler, a high school student from Maryland, finds the idea of going to college in a state that forbids abortion disturbing. The 16-year-old recalled the query she asked her high school class in May after the ruling that subsequently reversed Roe v. Wade was made public during a class discussion.
"What if I go to a college in a state where abortion is banned and I get raped and then I don't have the option to have an abortion?" she said.
Biden Takes Action To Protect Privacy of Abortion Seekers
On Friday, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that will protect access to abortion, which also includes measures to uphold safeguards on the privacy of patients.
Biden has ordered HHS to implement additional security measures, including those permitted by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, for sensitive information related to reproductive health care, per CNN.
The executive order also aims to protect mobile clinics sent out to treat patients from beyond their home states to protect those who are receiving and providing abortion services,
Related Article : Biden Signs Executive Order Boosting Abortion, Contraception Access: Here's What's In It
