After the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, women in conservative or swing states are worried prosecutors could request personal information from apps when building a case against someone who had an abortion
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On Friday, the US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe vs Wade judgment leading to much outrage from women’s rights groups and on social media.
Now, a few days later, some panicked women in the United States are deleting their period tracking apps.
Let’s take a closer look at why this is happening:
Why are women concerned?
As per The Guardian, women, especially in red and purple states, have cause to be concerned about period tracking apps which collect and share user data.
Prosecutors could request information collected by these apps when building a case against someone who had an abortion.
“If they are trying to prosecute a woman for getting an illegal abortion, they can subpoena any app on their device, including period trackers,” said Sara Spector, a Texas-based criminal defence attorney, and ex-prosecutor, told the newspaper.
Why do women use these apps?
The Guardian quotes a Kaiser Family Foundation survey as saying that nearly a third of American women use these apps.
They have helped make women’s lives easier in many ways, from family planning and detecting early signs of health issues to choosing the perfect time for a holiday, as per the report.
As per The Guardian, Flo and Clue, two of the most popular period trackers in the US, have more than 55 million users combined.
Companies reassure users
Flo has announced that it is working on an ‘anonymous mode’, which will allow women to use the apps without anyone being able to access their personal details, as per India Today.
Meanwhile, the Berlin-based app Clue said it was “committed to protecting” users’ private health data and that it was operating under strict European GDPR laws.
The company’s website says the app collects device data, event and usage data, in addition to a user’s IP address, health and sensitive data it may use for the purpose of improving the app, the services, and preventing abusive use of its service. But Clue does not track users’ precise location, and says it does not store sensitive personal data without a user’s explicit permission.
“We are, and always have been, committed to protecting your private health data. Your tracked experience should empower you, whatever your private health decisions. We will never enable anyone to use it against you. #RoevWade,” Clue tweeted on Sunday.
The company also tweeted that it would have a “primary legal duty under European law” not to disclose any private health data and it would “not respond to any disclosure request or attempted subpoena of their users’ health data by US authorities”.
What do experts say?
Eva Blum-Dumontet, a tech-policy researcher, told Business Insider it is “unlikely” that this data will be shared with government agencies.
However, Blum-Dumontet, who has published a paper on the privacy policies and practices of period-trackers, cautioned users not to live with a false sense of security, as per the report.
Eva Galperin, Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Eva Galperin, tweeted that users’ contact lists, friend lists, messages, location, searches, health information, and metadata needs to be protected by all tech companies, not just these period trackers.
“If tech companies don’t want to have their data turned into a dragnet against people seeking abortions and people providing abortion support, they need to stop collecting that data now. Don’t have it for sale. Don’t have it when a subpoena arrives,” Galperin tweeted.
Companies swing into action
As per India Today, a slew of tech companies including Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon have swung into action after the court ruling. Google sent out an email noting that employees who need to undergo abortion can relocate to states that allow the procedure without any “justification”.
Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, and more have announced plans to pay for employees to travel to get abortions if they are in states that have banned the process, as per the report.
Partial abortion bans have triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision in states including Florida, Ohio, Texas, Idaho, Mississippi and Utah.
Such bans are expected to be implemented in some 26 of the 50 states, and will force women in those states seeking abortions to travel sometimes hundreds of miles to a state where the procedure remains legal.
With inputs from agencies