From the article: Senator Ron Wyden and 41 other Democratic lawmakers are urging Google to stop collecting and keeping location data that could be used against people who’ve had or are seeking abortions. In a letter (PDF) to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the lawmakers referenced the Supreme Court draft obtained by Politico in which SCOTUS justices have voted to reverse Roe v. Wade. The landmark case protected the federal rights to abortion across the country, and states with trigger laws will immediately criminalize abortion if it truly gets overturned.
“[W]e are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google’s current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care,” the lawmakers wrote. Their issue mostly lies with how Google designed Android so that it also has to receive location data if a third-party app asks users for access to their location information. On iOS, Google can only collect information data while people are using Google Maps.
