Google has said in the coming weeks it plans to change its policy to delete personal or sensitive locations from a person’s history after a visit. Those locations can include counseling centers, domestic violence shelters and reproductive clinics that provide abortions.
With access to abortion services uncertain in Arizona and some other states, Google is moving to ease access to abortion care for employees who live in states where it’s illegal. That also includes covering travel costs.
But just as access to procedures is uncertain, so is law enforcement response to those moves from companies like Google.
K Royal is a law professor at Arizona State University. She says it’s unlikely that law enforcement would look for an individual’s information.
“But more likely it’s not gonna be did they ask ‘did Suzie go to the clinic at 20 weeks,’ they’re gonna say ‘give me the identifiers of all the people that went to this address.’” Royal said.
She says it’s part of a bigger issue, especially in Arizona where privacy is a right granted in the state constitution.
“The bigger issue isn’t how do we get away from technology tracking us so law enforcement can’t come after us. We just have a bigger cultural question on our hands as why can’t we be private? That’s the takeaway here is privacy in the U.S. has a long way to go," she said.
