This article originally appeared on ProPublica.
Online pharmacies selling abortion pills share sensitive data with Google and other third parties, allowing law enforcement to prosecute people who use the pills to terminate pregnancies, according to ProPublica analysis there is.
Using a tool created by Markup, a non-profit tech journalism newsroom, ProPublica surveyed 11 online pharmacies that sell abortion pills to reveal the web tracking technology they use. Late last year and early January, ProPublica discovered web trackers on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies offering pills by mail. and Online Abortion Pills Rx.
These third-party trackers, including Google analytics tools and advertising technologies, collect numerous details about users and pass them on to technology giant Google, its parent company Alphabet, and other third parties such as online chat provider LiveChat. Offers. These details include the web addresses you visited, what you clicked, the search terms you used to find the website, the sites you visited previously, your general location, and information about the device you used (if you access, etc.). computer or phone. This information helps the website function and helps technology companies personalize their ads.
However, according to ProPublica’s analysis, nine sites send potentially user-identifiable data to Google, including random numbers unique to users’ browsers and other collected data. can be associated with data.
“Why on earth would you do that as a pharmacy website?” said Serge Egelman, research director of the Usable Security and Privacy Group at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. . “It’s pretty silly, after all.”
Representatives for nine sites did not respond to requests for comment. All were recommended by Plan C, a popular website that provides information on how to get abortion pills by mail, including states where abortion is illegal. Plan C acknowledged that it has no control over these sites or their privacy practices.
While many people may assume that their health information is legally protected, US privacy laws limit the type and amount of data that companies such as Google and Facebook can collect from individuals. Not restricted. Tech companies are generally not bound by the health insurance portability and accountability law known as HIPAA. The law limits when certain health care providers and health plans can share a patient’s medical information. Federal law also doesn’t place many restrictions on how businesses can use this data.
Law enforcement agencies can obtain people’s data from technology companies such as Google, whose privacy policy states that they reserve the right to share your data with law enforcement agencies. Google requires a court order or search warrant. Law enforcement can get it if they have good reason to believe the search is justified. The company said he received more than 87,000 subpoenas and search warrants in the United States in 2021, the most recent year available. We do not provide a breakdown by type of these requests, such as how many abortion drugs are involved.
Google Analytics product director Steve Ganem said in a statement: Used to identify the user. “
