Over 40 Members of Congress Urge Google to Limit Location Data Collection for a Post-Roe America

Over 40 members of Congress, led by senator Ron Wyden and representative Anna G. Eshoo, urged Google to limit its location data gathering efforts so as to stop it being used by right-wing prosecutors if the Supreme Court reverses the protections offered by Roe v. Wade, according to a copy of the letter released by Wyden’s office on Tuesday.

Google is of particular importance if those protections are scrapped because the company collects a massive amount of location data through its Android operating system and apps, and makes that information available to law enforcement. If seeking or providing abortion services becomes a crime in large parts of the U.S., for example, investigative agencies would generally be within their right to request access to such data if it was part of a valid law enforcement investigation. Google controversially regularly responds to so-called reverse location data warrants or geofence warrants, and provides information on all of the devices it detected as being in a certain area at a certain time.