Abolition or Abolition of Abortion Rights in the United States at the Supreme Court brings a lot of queues inside and outside the country. In addition to the large number of states that have already passed or are passing laws banning this practice, some companies like Google have announced that they will strengthen the privacy of their users so that they can eliminate traces of the places they visit.
Google did not specifically comment on the US Supreme Court decision, but few doubt that the recently announced changes are at least partly a response to the event.
The Mountain View giant announced that location history is disabled by default, but if you enable it, it will take care of providing “simple controls like auto-delete so users can easily delete some or all of their data at any time.”
“Some places people visit (including health care facilities such as counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment centers, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others) can be particularly personal. We’re announcing it today if our systems detect that someone has visited one of these locations, we will remove those records from Location History shortly after the visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks..
In addition to location history, Google recalled the implementation of its Play Store (digital store). “strict protocols to protect user privacy”except for policies that prohibit developers from selling personal or sensitive data and require that they handle such data securely and only for the purposes of the application.
Logically, many will certainly think of the Maps service, but Google has long since gone much further when it comes to recording user data. The company commented on this via Google Fit and Fitbit offers users “settings and tools to easily access and control your personal information, including the ability to change and delete personal information at any time. For example, Fitbit users who choose to track their menstrual cycles in the app can now delete one menstrual record at a time, and we will be releasing updates to allow users to delete multiple records at once.”.
Finally, we have Google’s commitment to law enforcement. While a corporation certainly has a large team of lawyers on its payroll, sometimes it gets to the point where it has no loophole to defend itself against. At this point, it has promised to offer transparency and protect its users through a relevant report “against inappropriate government data requests” and oppose “for claims that are overly broad or legally objectionable”. Additionally, he will support laws that force the government to be more transparent with data requests.
As we have already said, Google did not explicitly comment on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to reverse its decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, but the announced changes aim to try to protect the data of women, in addition to other people whose situation is delicate.
