Crypto News: A warning on abortion data

Hi, it's Jack in Washington. The Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade may alter how millions of people use their cell phones. But first...

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After the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, privacy watchdogs are warning Americans who seek abortions that authorities may use their smartphone data against them.

Data privacy advocates are raising the alarm about the dangers of authorities weaponizing digital data from prospective healthcare patients, especially people in states with "trigger laws" that aim to quickly outlaw terminating pregnancies. Location-tracking services, web search histories, text messages and other data fragments could be used against women in the US.

It's been less than a week since the Supreme Court's ruling, so the extent to which state law enforcement agencies may adopt such tactics when enforcing anti-abortion statutes is unclear.

Internet security experts advise not waiting to find out.

Users shouldn't hand over their phones to anyone and should be comfortable using encrypted communications, said Cynthia Conti-Cook, an attorney and technology fellow at the Ford Foundation who's studied the impact of digital surveillance on abortion rights.

"No one should have to work to maintain and fight for their privacy simply to access healthcare," she said. "Healthcare should be a right and guarantee. However, to the extent that we've seen pregnant people prosecuted and criminalized by way of their emails, texts, and internet searches, there are a few steps people can take to protect themselves."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends that people use a phone number not tied to their identity, check the privacy settings of programs like menstruation-tracking apps and turn off advertising identifiers on a personal device. The EFF says there's a lot people can do to "control who you are giving your information to, what kind of data they get, and how it might be connected to the rest of your digital life."

Meanwhile, the Digital Defense Fund, a pro-abortion group, urged people to use pre-paid credit cards whenever possible, in order to avoid exposing any payment data.

The potential harm isn't theoretical.

In early 2020, for instance, a woman's online search history for abortion medication contributed to a second-degree murder indictment. More recently, Vice News was able to buy a week's worth of data — for about $160 — showing where people who visited Planned Parenthood came from and where they went afterwards. The data was anonymized and didn't expose details about individuals, although Vice reported that researchers have warned about ways individuals could be unmasked.

Data about a user's location, demographics and all sorts of information are collected as a matter of course by mobile apps — often by way of mundane tasks like getting driving directions or buying groceries. Companies have privacy policies that govern how that data is used, although they often say they'll comply with law enforcement or other legal requests. Stardust, a period-tracking app, shares user's phone numbers with third-party services, TechCrunch reported.

In states where abortion is illegal, could investigators therefore gather GPS data from phones in or near abortion clinics to create a list of potential suspects? My colleague Spencer Soper reported that at least one governor, Jay Inslee of Washington, vowed to block other states, like Texas, from accessing data that would reveal when women travel to the state for the procedure.

Then there's the data broker industry, the estimated $200 billion sector populated by companies that scour the web for personal data, repackage it and sell it to others.

Nearly two dozen senators across the political spectrum, including Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, criticized the practice by introducing legislation last year to plug "loopholes" in federal law. "There's no reason information scavenged by data brokers should be treated differently than the same data held by your phone company or email provider," Wyden says. —Jack Gillum

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