Democrats ask FTC to research Google and Apple assortment of abortion knowledge

Democratic lawmakers requested the Federal Commerce Fee to research Apple and Google over their private knowledge assortment practices and whether or not they could possibly be used to focus on ladies in search of abortions.

4 Democratic senators despatched a letter to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan on Friday requesting that she examine the 2 Huge Tech firms over knowledge assortment. Whereas using private knowledge has been a priority for lawmakers worldwide, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) mentioned they imagine it's a specific risk to these in search of abortions.

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"With the Supreme Court docket prone to overturn Roe v. Wade, people in search of abortions and different reproductive healthcare will develop into significantly susceptible to privateness harms, together with by the gathering and sharing of their location knowledge," the letter argued. The letter seems to be launched previous to the Jackson Ladies's Well being Group v. Dobbs ruling on Friday, which overturned the 1973 Roe determination that legalized abortion nationwide.

The 4 lawmakers pointed to claims that knowledge brokers are promoting, licensing, and sharing the situation knowledge of people that go to abortion clinics. Additionally they claimed prosecutors in states the place abortion turns into unlawful might be able to purchase the person knowledge of anybody who visits an abortion clinic and that non-public residents shall be "incentivized" by state bounty legal guidelines to "search out ladies who've obtained, or are in search of an abortion."

The gathering of abortion clinic-related knowledge has been a traditionally acknowledged observe. At the least two knowledge assortment companies have supplied abortion clinic-related knowledge to different shoppers, together with the New York Instances and Motherboard. At the least one girl has been prosecuted primarily based on abortion-related on-line searches.

Google has been scrutinized for its location knowledge assortment practices. A number of state attorneys common sued Google in January 2022 for its profiting off of location knowledge.

The FTC didn't reply to requests for remark from the Washington Examiner.