The decision aims to protect people’s right to privacy. The company made the announcement a week after the US Supreme Court overturned abortion rights at the federal level.
10:04•Updated 10:11
The technology company Google intends to remove visits to abortion clinics, shelters for victims of intimate partner violence or other places where privacy is respected from users’ location data.
The company made the announcement a week after the US Supreme Court overturned abortion rights at the federal level. As a result of the decision, states are allowed to decide their own abortion laws.
Google also does not intend to store location information about, for example, visits to fertility clinics, weight loss clinics or addiction treatment facilities.
In a blog post, the company’s representative said that the location data will be deleted soon after the visit, if the systems detect that the user has visited the aforementioned destinations.
Technology companies have been required to limit data collection
The publication emphasizes that privacy is important to people, especially when it is related to things like health.
The company says it has long sought to promote a US-wide privacy law, and says recent progress in the country’s Congress has been favorable. However, Google underlines that it has taken action before the potential law comes into force.
Activists and politicians have demanded that Google and other tech giants limit the amount of data they collect. It has been feared that law enforcement authorities may use information collected by technology companies in, among other things, abortion-related examinations and possible lawsuits.
Concerns about the information collected by the companies regarding abortion rights have already raised their heads considerably before the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
In recent months, several conservative states have passed laws that allow citizens to sue, among other things, doctors who perform abortions.
The Supreme Court makes controversial decisions
In the United States, the conservative-majority Supreme Court has recently issued not only the abortion decision but also other controversial decisions. A week ago, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that the country’s constitution guarantees the right to carry a weapon outside the home.
The Supreme Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. According to the Supreme Court, concern for public safety is not enough to justify new restrictions related to weapons.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court struck down a New York state law that restricts the public carrying of weapons.
On Thursday of this week, the court limited the ability of the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to combat climate change.
The Supreme Court limited the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The decision was a blow to the president Joe Biden to the administration’s efforts to combat climate change.
New York promotes abortion rights and limits the carrying of handguns
New York has started to fight against the Supreme Court’s decisions. According to the New York Times, the state’s governor Kathy Hochul convened a special decision-making session of the state legislature on Thursday. According to the newspaper, the session continued well into Friday evening.
At least the abortion decision, which received significant opposition, and the easing of gun restrictions were discussed in the session.
The state is said to be adding the right to abortion and the right to access contraceptives to its constitution.
After approval by the state Senate, the constitutional amendment will go to the state House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass. After this, voters get to decide on the issue directly in a referendum.
New York state law already allows abortions, so the law would only provide an additional layer of legal protection for the procedure.
At the same time, the amendment to the constitution also aims to expand the increase in equality, which would extend the current protections to several new population groups. In the future, gender, disabilities, national heritage, ethnicity and age would be better taken into account in the future.
Regarding the Supreme Court’s gun decision, the state legislature, meanwhile, passed a new law that places significant restrictions on the carrying of handguns.
“We’re not going backwards”
Liberal New York is one of the most left-leaning states in the country. All three branches of state government are controlled by Democrats, and President Biden easily defeated his predecessor in the 2020 New York election About Donald Trump.
States with more conservative wins are slipping to the right even more than before. This week’s decisions in New York, on the other hand, offer a foretaste of an intensifying battle between the Supreme Court and Democratic states that will last for years.
– We are not going backwards, Democratic Governor Hochul said at a press conference in New York’s capital, Albany, on Friday.
– They may think they can change our lives with the wave of a pen, but we also have pens, he continued.
The governor also referred to the upcoming Independence Day, which will be celebrated in the United States next Monday. He asked New Yorkers to remember what is honored on Independence Day: the founding of a state that respects individual rights and freedoms.
“I stand here to protect freedom here in the state of New York,” he added.