Google Still Collecting and Retaining Abortion-Related Searches

We have entered a post–abortion rights era in America, which has significantly ratcheted up how we must account for the intrusiveness and impact of Big Tech on our lives and democracy. For example, a common mindset of many Americans has been “I don’t care about online privacy, as I have nothing to hide.” But the repeal of Roe should remind us that we are in a world of near-total digital surveillance—including the ability to track our precise location and juxtapose it with our internet search history and purchases. It was, perhaps, simply about serving targeted ads in the past, but now Big Tech’s hoard of data can significantly erode our rights and actively be weaponized against us.

Public concern and employee pressure led Google to announce in early July 2022 that it would delete location data when users visit abortion clinics.  In light that I was researching and writing my book — Containing Big Tech — which looked at the digital surveillance and use of AI by Big Tech firms, I figured I would validate in August of 2022 if Google were doing what they said would do.

As I discovered and wrote about in Containing Big Tech:

“I did internet searches involving the keywords “abortion,” “abortion pill,” and “nearest abortion clinic.” I visited websites and clicked on ads for those keywords. I used Google Maps to find the nearest abortion clinic and drove to it and back from my home. I created a calendar event with the clinic’s address and the title “Abortion Appointment.” And I searched my email and calendar using those keywords. In myactivity.google.com, Google captured all the abortion-related searches (including searches I did inside my email and calendar), websites I visited, and clicked ads. Google also showed the route I took from my house to the clinic, and it even captured the calendar notification on my phone that I had an appointment at a clinic. Google had a complete dossier on my abortion-related research and travel. If I had a pregnancy tracking app on my phone, Google would know when I started and stopped using it.”

I presented my findings as part of a guest lecture to a Privacy law class at UC Davis in the fall of 2022.  Some screenshots are below:

Then in November 2022, I was contacted by Johana Bhuiyan, a reporter with the Guardian, who eventually published an article entitled “Googling abortion? Your details aren’t as private as you think.” She published research findings from Accountable Tech, and also had me redo my research and had some quotes from me.  Her conclusion:

“In the wake of the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, Google pledged fresh policies to protect people’s abortion-related data. But new research has shown the way our location and other personal data is stored remains largely unchanged, raising fears that intimate details of a person’s abortion search could be used to penalize them.”

Specific to my research, she wrote:

“Other privacy advocates testing Google’s location tracking system also found similar results. Tom Kemp, a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and investor, performed a comparable experiment in August. Kemp searched phrases such as “I need an abortion”, then searched for Planned Parenthood clinics near him and drove to a location using Google Maps for directions. A review of Kemp’s activity shows that more than three months later, the search queries as well as the fact that he was directed to the clinic remain stored in his timeline.”

The key thing here is that my August data was still being retained by Google, and the new data as of November 2022 was still being collected.  From the article:

“In order to help the Guardian test what other information is being retained, Kemp also conducted searches such as “get an abortion near me”. On 22 November, he scheduled a calendar event entitled “Get an abortion”, with a location tag for the nearest clinic. He also searched for and downloaded a period-tracking app called Clue in the Google Play store.

Google’s activity log shows the user visited a period tracker app. 

All of this was stored in his activity timeline in considerable detail. A Guardian review of his activity shows that, at 10.12am on 22 November, he received a notification from Google Assistant telling him: “Time to leave for Get an abortion.” It also shows he “visited Clue Period & Cycle Tracker” on the Google Play store, searched for “abortion pill” at 10.03am and searched for “get an abortion near me” a minute later.

As of November, searches for “abortion” from his August experiment also remained stored in his activity timeline.

Taken together, the information paints a fairly detailed picture of whether and how someone sought an abortion.”

So Google clearly knew that its pledge was not fully implemented as of November 2022.  Now fast-forward to May of 2023, i.e., six months later, and the same issues remain as evidenced by this article by Geoffrey Fowler in the Washington Post entitled Google promised to delete sensitive data. It logged my abortion clinic visit.  In the article he concludes:

“When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, privacy advocates, including me, raised an alarm that data from smartphones could be used to help prosecute abortions. Google offered a partial solution: It would proactively delete its trove of location data when people visited “particularly personal” places, including abortion clinics, hospitals and shelters.

Nearly a year later, my investigation reveals Google isn’t doing that in any consistent way. And its response to me shows it isn’t taking accountability.”

The article basically replicates the same research I did in August of 2022 and Accountable Tech did in the Fall of 2022. 

Summary

Historically this near-total digital surveillance by Big Tech has enabled those companies to profile us and utilize this deep insight to let advertisers target us. But now, this data and behavioral analysis can be weaponized against us if, for example, you facilitate or get an abortion in certain US states. It is disappointing that Google had made a pledge not to retain abortion-related searches and not fully implemented it.  As noted in the WaPo article, Accountable Tech reported that Google is not deleting the data in 60% of their tests.

Note that this is an issue not just with “first party” data collected by Big Tech firms like Google.  It is a massive problem with “third-party” data collected by data brokers. I have spelled out multiple examples of how data brokers are collecting and selling reproductive healthcare data.  And I have even proposed and co-drafted a California Senate Bill — Senate Bill 362 — which has been introduced by State Senator Josh Becker and is called the California Delete Act. It would create an online portal for consumers to request that data brokers delete any data they have on the consumer and no longer track them. It will also require data brokers to reveal if they collect reproductive healthcare data and precise geolocation when they register with the State of California.  It is coming up for a key vote on May 18th in the California Senate Appropriations Committee, and the big issue is will the tech industry try to do a back-room deal with key California politicians and get it silently euthanized like they did last year with a comparable data broker bill.  Stay tuned.