Google: Employee Petition Calls for End to Abortion Data Collection

A group of Google employees is urging the company to stop collecting data from search engine users who want abortion information, says the Wall Street Journal. To do this, a petition, signed by more than 650 employees and sent on Monday, August 15, to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, asks Google to take a series of measures.

respect for privacy

First, “immediate user data privacy controls for all health-related activities,” such as research on reproductive issues and seeking information about abortion services. The signatories also asked Google to correct “misleading search results related to abortion services by removing results from fake abortion providers” such as crisis pregnancy centers, facilities that advise women not to interrupt their pregnancies.

Among other demands, the employees called on Alphabet to end anti-abortion lobbying efforts through its internal political action committee and take steps to limit ads about “misinformation related to abortion services” by publishers. The petitioners also called on Alphabet to create a 50% employee representative task force to address company-wide abortion-related issues.

Tech companies under close scrutiny

According to a representative from the Alphabet Workers Union, a union for employees of Google’s parent company, Sundar Pichai has yet to respond to employee complaints. Because since the Supreme Court ruling last June, which overturned Roe v. Wade, tech companies and location data brokers are under increased scrutiny from US authorities.

Privacy advocates worry that prosecutors will use court orders or subpoenas to demand data showing users who visited abortion clinics or searched for related information. This data could be used to build legal cases against people accused of having abortions in states that have banned the procedure.

A politically sensitive issue

Or, the firm of Mountain View, as the plupart des entreprises technologiques, declared that it will respond to the demands of government agencies concerning the données de utilisateurs alors that the traitement de rules relative to the avortement by Google is becoming a politically sensitive question In the U.S. Before the Supreme Court ruling, in a letter to Google, more than 20 Democratic members of Congress urged the firm to take steps to limit the appearance of crisis pregnancy centers in abortion-related searches.

The following month, 17 Republican-ranked attorneys general responded with their own letter warning they would take action against the company if it withheld findings related to these facilities, which they said provide important medical services. For its part, the Alphabet Workers Union responded by issuing a public statement in late June urging Google to stop storing “any data that could be used to prosecute users exercising bodily autonomy in the United States.”

In response to these various mandates, Google said in July that it would begin automatically removing data on physical visits to abortion clinics recorded by its products. Following the announcement, Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees that the company “will work on new ways to strengthen and improve these protections over time.”