In a divided country, the concerns of the two camps are very different. On the one hand, the Tiktok app is caught in the crossfire in the USA. Republican senators are putting pressure on the Beijing-based company Bytedance because the Chinese state can probably use its popular video app to get private data from US users.
On the other hand, many women fear their own state and its surveillance apparatus rather than China. Because where abortion was legal a moment ago, it has become a crime in many conservative states since the Supreme Court ruled – no matter how desperate a pregnant woman is. This also means that the handling of personal data in smartphones will be put to the test again.
Because telephones are considered a “window to the soul”: With the right evaluation software, outsiders can not only reconstruct whether a woman was pregnant, but also when this pregnancy ended. Many women therefore delete their cycle apps, in which data on ovulation, sex – whether unprotected or not – or missed periods are recorded. Their fear: The police in a state that criminalizes abortion could evaluate data from the providers of such apps. A public prosecutor could then use the data to argue in court that the woman was pregnant up to a certain point in time. In this way, investigators do not have to make the less than promising attempt to obtain specially protected data from clinics or doctors.
The stories of the telltale cycle apps are spreading around the world. But perhaps the focus on these apps is misguided. The problem is much bigger writes Cory Doctorow, one of the highest profile digital privacy activists at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on his blog. He admits that many cycle apps are total disasters when it comes to data protection. Nevertheless, women should not be under the illusion that deleting such an app would offer them security.
The total catastrophe is a fundamental one, in the form of practically all apps distributed via the Google and Facebook app stores – from those for distance learning to those used to remind Muslims to pray. The entire tech sector spy on its users. This is particularly evident in the location data, which records where a device and thus its user has been. Investigators could get this data from the companies and find out who attended an abortion clinic. Or they go to a data dealer who brings together and sells data from apps.
A Catholic newsletter service has outed a priest using location data
So could a reporter’s website motherboard for $160 from data retailer Safegraph buy a record, which included visits to 600 Planned Parenthood facilities. The non-profit organization helps pregnant women and also offers abortions. Individual visitors are relatively easy to identify, since the “anonymization” of the data usually does not deserve this description. Safegraph then announced that it would no longer sell data on abortion clinics.
That the religious right is not afraid to use location data to out people, showed up last year. The Catholic Newsletter Service the pillar used such data to show that a senior priest at the US Bishops’ Conference had frequented gay bars and used the gay dating app Grindr. He resigned.
Google reacted at the weekend and sided with women: location data that provides information about visits to medical facilities will be automatically deleted. This also applies explicitly to abortion clinics. In the struggle with the republican states President Joe Biden is also trying nowto better protect such data and has asked the Federal Communications Authority FTC to take appropriate steps.
Other experts point out that it is not just about location data. In the past, in charges against mothers for allegedly illegal abortions, the police have primarily evaluated search queries and text messages from the accused women, stored on their computers and cell phones. They should provide evidence of women’s considerations about possible abortions.
IT researcher Maggie Delano argues, it makes sense in principle to switch to one of the few data-saving cycle apps. However, the biggest informers who have brought women to court after abortions so far have not been algorithms. But hospital staff, friends and relatives who would have called the police.