More than 40 Democratic members of Congress called on Google to stop collecting and retaining customer location data that could be used to identify women who obtain abortions.
In a world in which abortion could be made illegal, they are concerned that the current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists. Democrats wrote a letter on Tuesday saying that it was because of the historical location information that was stored by the company. The letter was sent to the CEO.
There should be no unnecessary customer location data or any non-aggregate location data about individual customers. Lawmakers wrote that the online advertising-focused digital infrastructure cannot be weaponized against women. They said that people who use iPhones have more privacy than the tens of millions of Americans who use Android devices.
Democrats wrote that Republicans in Congress are already discussing passing a law criminalizing abortion in all 50 states, putting the government in control of women.
AdvertisementDemocrats told Pichai in their letter.
While Google deserves credit for being one of the first companies in America to insist on a warrant before disclosing location data to law enforcement, that is not enough. If abortion is made illegal by the far-right Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers, it is inevitable that right-wing prosecutors will obtain legal warrants to hunt down, prosecute and jail women for obtaining critical reproductive health care. The only way to protect your customers' location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place.
They wrote that, regardless of whether the phone is being used or which app the user has open, the location information from the phone is transmitted to the search engine. Consumers can only enable third party apps to access location data if they also allow Google to receive their location data as well. The lawmakers wrote that the location data from users of the Apple device is only collected when they use the Google Maps app.
If we get a response to the letter, we will update this article.
It has been a matter of confusion for some employees of the company about how location privacy settings work. In August 2020 we wrote about the documents from the consumer fraud suit the state of Arizona filed against the company, which showed that company employees knew and discussed among themselves that the company's location privacy settings were confusing and potentially misleading.
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