Article Author:
Associated Press
The case of a Nebraska woman charged with helping her teenage daughter terminate her pregnancy after investigators obtained a Facebook message between the two has become a turning point in the post-Roe world. It has raised new concerns about data privacy.
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, big tech companies that collect users' personal information could potentially be used by law enforcement and vigilante groups. Amidst this concern, we have faced new demands to limit its tracking and monitoring. There is a lot of data against people seeking abortions or trying to help abortions.
Meta, which owns Facebook, said Tuesday it received a warrant from local law enforcement on June 7 demanding messages in the Nebraska lawsuit. The warrant "made no mention of abortion," the company added, adding that court documents at the time showed police were investigating "suspected illegal burning and burial of stillborn babies."
However, in early June the mother and daughter were charged with only one count of felony removal, concealment, or abandonment of a corpse and two misdemeanors of concealing and falsely reporting the death of another. rice field.
It was the first time prosecutors had added felony abortion-related charges against the mother after investigators reviewed her private Facebook messages about a month later.
History has repeatedly shown that whenever people's personal data is tracked and stored, there is always a risk of misuse or misuse. With the Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, the collected location data, text messages, search histories, emails, and seemingly innocuous menstruation and ovulation tracking apps have become It could be used to prosecute people seeking abortion or seeking medical attention. Not only those who take care of miscarriages, but also those who help miscarriages.
"In the digital age, this decision paved the way for law enforcement and private bounty hunters to seek vast amounts of personal data from ordinary Americans," said the Center for Democracy. said Alexandra Reeve Givens, president and CEO of Technology is a Washington-based digital rights non-profit organization.
The reason why Facebook flipped the message.
Facebook owner Meta said it had received a legal warrant from law enforcement for the incident, but did not mention the word "abortion." The company said its officials at the social media giant "constantly scrutinize government requests to ensure they are legally valid," and that Meta is invalid or out of scope. It says it will fight back against requests it deems too broad.
However, the company provided information to investigators in about 88% of his 59,996 cases for which the government requested data in the second half of last year, according to the company's transparency report. Mehta declined to say whether the response would have been different had the word "abortion" been mentioned in the warrant.
Not a new issue
Until May of this year, anyone could purchase massive amounts of weekly data on clients from over 600 Planned Parenthood sites nationwide for a fraction of the price. As $160, according to a recent sub-study. The files included approximate patient addresses derived from where their phones "slept" at night, income brackets, time spent in clinics, and top locations patients visited before and after.
Federal law, specifically HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, protects the privacy of medical files in clinics; Anything is possible because the information that is collected by companies and technology companies is not protected. about you. This is also true when apps that collect data share it with third parties who may misuse it.
In 2017, a black woman named Fisher of Lattice, Mississippi, was charged with second-degree murder after seeking medical attention for an abortion.
“While being treated by medical staff, she was immediately treated for suspicion of having committed a crime,” civil rights attorney and Ford Foundation Fellow Cynthia Conticook, 2020. In his 2008 paper he wrote: Fisher's "statement to the nurse, medical records, and autopsy records of her unborn child have been turned over to local police to investigate whether she intentionally killed the unborn child," she wrote.
Fisher was charged with second-degree murder in 2018. Her conviction could lead to life imprisonment. The murder charges were later dismissed. Evidence against her included her online search history, including queries about how to induce a miscarriage and how to buy abortion pills online.
" Her digital data gave prosecutors "a window into [her] soul" to substantiate their prevailing theory that she did not want her fetus to survive," Konticook wrote. ing.
Industry Response
Many companies have announced policies to protect their employees by paying for out-of-state travel to get abortions. But tech companies have said little about how they will work together. Law enforcement and government agencies are seeking to prosecute people seeking illegal abortions or helping others to do so.
It asked Apple and Google to be investigated for allegedly defrauding millions of mobile phone users by allowing them to collect and sell personal data to third parties.
The following month, following a Supreme Court ruling, Google automatically removed information about users visiting abortion clinics and other locations that could raise legal issues. announced that it will be permanently removed.
Governments and law enforcement agencies can subpoena companies to hand over their users' data. In general, Big Tech policy suggests that companies comply with abortion-related data requests unless they consider them overly broad. For example, Meta points to its online transparency report, which states that it will "comply with government requests for user information only if we have a good faith belief that it is required by law."
Online rights advocates say that's not enough. For example, in the Nebraska case, if Meta's messages on his WhatsApp service were "end-to-end encrypted" in the way that they are protected by default, neither Meta nor law enforcement could read them. You couldn't.
“Meta should flip a switch to make end-to-end encryption the default for all private messages, including Facebook and Instagram. It can save the lives of pregnant people," said Caitlin Seeley-George, campaign and managing director of the nonprofit Fight for the Future.
User Burden
Unless all your data is securely encrypted, there is always the chance that someone somewhere can access it. Abortion rights activists therefore suggest that people in states where abortion is prohibited should restrict the creation of such data in the first place.
For example, when seeking reproductive health care, it recommends turning off location services on your phone or leaving your phone at home. For safety's sake, they say it's a good idea to read the privacy policy of any health app you're using.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends using a more privacy-conscious web browser such as Brave, Firefox, or DuckDuckGo, but you may want to double-check your privacy settings. Recommended.
You can also turn off advertising identifiers on both Apple and Android phones so advertisers can't track you. This is generally a good idea in any case. Apple asks if you want to be tracked every time you download a new app. For apps that are already installed, you can manually turn off tracking.
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