Abortion in the United States: the fear of the use of personal data collected on the Net

User data is normally anonymized before being sold to advertisers, but it remains accessible to authorities with court warrants.

Here, Google's California headquarters in Mountain View, September 24, 2019. AP - Jeff Chiu

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

After the US Supreme Court's decision on Friday to revoke the federal right to abortion, elected officials and associations have called on major technology platforms to better protect personal data.

If the latter are tracked by the giants of the Net to be able to sell advertisements, they also remain accessible to the authorities provided with a mandate: the States prohibiting the IVG could use them to supervise its inhabitants.

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Digital

traces

such as a simple Google search for Planned Parenthood or a discussion with a pregnant friend on Facebook could be used against women seeking abortions

in some US states

.

This is because these companies track every movement of its users to be able to sell targeted and personalized advertising space to advertisers.

In an open letter to Google leader Sundar Pichai, 42 elected Democrats said at the end of May that the Internet risks becoming a “ 

tool for extremists who want to suppress people seeking reproductive health care

 ”.

The responsibility for protecting sensitive data should fall to the authorities, remind these elected officials.

Even before the Supreme Court's decision, laws were passed, particularly in Texas, to encourage ordinary citizens to launch lawsuits against

women suspected of having had abortions

, as well as against people who helped them.

To protect these people, a Democratic MP tabled a bill in Congress in early June which would, in particular, oblige companies to collect only strictly necessary health information.

California and some US states have also passed laws in recent years to better regulate

the privacy of personal information online

, but Congress can not agree on a federal law.

►Also read: Right to abortion: "For the first time, the Supreme Court takes away an established right"

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