The United States Consumer Protection Agency on Monday (August 29th) sued a data collection company for selling anti-abortion groups the geolocation information of ” hundreds of thousands of mobile phones. These data facilitate the identification of women who have visited clinics performing abortion, the regulator said in its press release.
Since the Supreme Court of the United States is reconsidered the judgment guaranteeing the protection of the right to abortion By the US Constitution, activists from anti-abortion groups buy geolocation information from thousands of smartphones from data brokers to track illegal abortions.
The almost all mobile applications transmit this type of data which trace the places frequented by mobile phone owners. And by cross-referencing information, they reveal their name and home address.
Because of this, the US Consumer Protection Agency filed a complaint against the data collection company Kochava. She accuses him of having sold sensitive information to identify women who have had an abortion, but also those who have gone to centers for victims of domestic violence or addiction treatment.
These disclosed data expose them to threats, harassment, discrimination, job loss and even physical violence “, argues the regulator, who demands the immediate erasure of all the geolocation information that the company has collected.
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