Dems urge Google to not collect locale info

More than 40 Democratic members of Congress are asking Google to stop what they see as the unnecessary collection and retention of people’s location data, arguing the information could be used to identify women seeking abortions.

In a letter sent this month to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent Alphabet Inc., the lawmakers express concern that if abortion were to become illegal in the U.S., the company’s “current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care.”

If the Supreme Court upends the 1973 decision that legalized abortion — as a draft opinion suggests it may in the coming weeks — pregnancies could be surveilled and the data shared with police or sold to vigilantes, privacy experts fear.

Google, specifically, stores “historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users,” the letter notes, “which it routinely shares with government agencies.”

Representatives for Alphabet did not immediately respond to a message for comment. Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, has reportedly reminded employees that they are prohibited from discussing abortion in workplace communication channels. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Law enforcement officials routinely obtain court orders forcing Google to turn over its customers’ location information, the letter notes, including requests for Google to provide data about everyone who was near a specific location at a specific time.