User Error: Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice
People seeking abortion care, abortion clinics and providers, and people who help facilitate abortion care, such as abortion funds and practical support networks, are being surveilled by both state agencies and private actors. The corporations that govern our digital spaces act as a significant, largely unregulated arm for these surveillance systems, constantly collecting and sharing intimate data about our behaviors, movements, and communications that are easily weaponized. And while some medical information that flows through Big Tech is protected by expanded HIPAA protections, anti-abortion lawmakers are already suing to remove those safeguards.
Big Tech companies and data brokers have supplied anti-abortion groups and law enforcement agencies with the information they need to surveil, criminalize, stalk, doxx, and harass abortion seekers or anyone connected to them. These companies have:
- Collected personal information and communications including private Facebook messages and shared them with law enforcement in states that have criminalized abortion.
- Sold location data of people visiting reproductive healthcare clinics to anyone willing to pay.
- Platformed dangerous disinformation on social media and in paid search results and ads.
To read the full report, click here.