{"id":291653,"date":"2023-05-22T12:40:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T17:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=291653"},"modified":"2023-05-24T05:15:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T10:15:07","slug":"google-sued-abortion-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/google-sued-abortion-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman sues Google for ‘intercepting’ data on Planned Parenthood’s website"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

An anonymous woman has filed a lawsuit against Google over its data collection practices, and in the process, has exposed how both Planned Parenthood and Google utilize sensitive data to generate profit in alleged violation of women\u2019s privacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The plantiff, Jane Doe, claims her private information was intercepted by Google when she used Planned Parenthood’s scheduling portion of the website while searching for an abortionist in 2018.<\/p>\n

According to the <\/span>complaint<\/span><\/a> filed on May 12th of this year, \u201cGoogle intercepted and collected their sensitive information, including their searches, inputs, health information relating to private, personal, sensitive medical appointments, medical conditions, specific treatments, messages to healthcare providers, and PII without consent.\u201d The plaintiff has \u201ca reasonable expectation of privacy in their confidential communications, including information relating to their searches for and scheduling of abortions and other medical services, and their sensitive medical information,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleges that the use of tracking violates several laws, including the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) and the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The complaint also argues that Google violated California\u2019s state constitution, which has strong privacy protections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2022, The Washington Post <\/span>reported<\/span><\/a> that Planned Parenthood\u2019s web scheduler shares private data with third-party companies including Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Hotjar. According to the report, Planned Parenthood shared a large volume of information with Google, including \u201cIP address, site visited, behavior on the site, reason for visiting (e.g., abortion), user\u2019s selected method of abortion (e.g., surgical abortion\/in-clinic), browser time zone, name of Planned Parenthood Health Center for appointment,\u201d zip code, time stamp, and browser information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Walgreens<\/a><\/p>\n

The anonymous woman\u2019s legal action comes after the tech giant pledged, in the wake of the <\/span>Dobbs<\/span><\/i> decision which overturned <\/span>Roe v Wade<\/span><\/i>, to delete users\u2019 sensitive data such as \u201cmedical facilities like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics,\u201d the <\/span>Guardian<\/span><\/a> reports. A follow-up report by The Washington Post showed that <\/span>Google has not yet substantially changed its practices<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about these concerns, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Lauren Kokum defended the practice as core to its business model. \u201cMarketing is a necessary part of Planned Parenthood\u2019s work to reach people who are seeking sexual and reproductive health care, education, and information,\u201d she told The Washington Post. The abortion giant later stated it \u201cwill suspend marketing pixels on web pages related to abortion search,\u201d according to Diana Contreras, chief health-care officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, as reported by The Post.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Live Action has <\/span>documented<\/span><\/a>, Planned Parenthood, which has the largest market share of any abortion chain in the country at nearly 40.2%<\/a>, \u201cis focused on pushing profitable abortions, often at the expense of health care services for the women it claims to serve.\u201d The use of advanced online advertisement trackers at the expense of privacy aligns with this prioritization.<\/span><\/p>\n

But data privacy experts disagree with the abortion giant. \u201cThis was absolutely shocking,\u201d said Johnny Lin, maker of Lockdown Privacy, an app designed to block online tracking, according to The Post. \u201cWe\u2019ve analyzed and reviewed the tracking behaviors of hundreds of apps and websites, and it\u2019s rare to see this degree of carelessness with sensitive health data.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Senior staff technologist Cooper Quintin at the privacy advocacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s really irresponsible of Planned Parenthood to be creating more data about the visitors to the website and more trails of evidence about the people that are seeking their services,\u201d he said, according to The Post. \u201cPlanned Parenthood needs to \u2014 right now, right this second \u2014 minimize the amount of data that they are sharing with any outside party and minimize the amount of data that they are keeping.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While abortion advocates have raised <\/span>concerns<\/span><\/a> over data harvesting from health or period tracking apps being used to prosecute women who obtain illegal abortions, to date, there is no evidence of this happening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note 5\/24\/23: This article was updated with the most recent abortion market share percentage for Planned Parenthood.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you know that as little as $10 a month is enough to reach more than 3,000 people with the truth about abortion that no one else is telling them? Click here to start saving lives 365 days a year.<\/strong><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An anonymous woman has filed a lawsuit against Google over its data collection practices, and in the process, has exposed how both Planned Parenthood and Google utilize sensitive data to generate profit in alleged violation of women\u2019s privacy.\u00a0 The plantiff, Jane Doe, claims her private information was intercepted by Google when she used Planned Parenthood’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":606,"featured_media":258154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[4,3473],"tags":[20048,3319,14,732],"yoast_head":"\nWoman sues Google for 'intercepting' data on Planned Parenthood's website<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Woman files lawsuit against Google over data collection practices, exposing how Planned Parenthood and Google use sensitive data.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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