Washington, DC –U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Edward Markey (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in calling on Google for answers after recent reporting revealed that the company is not consistently upholding its commitment to delete sensitive location data, leaving data about personal health care decisions at risk and potentially allowing the data to be used to advertise services that may be harmful.
“Last July, Google rightly noted that location data can be very personal and announced that it would delete entries of sensitive locations from the Location History feature ‘in the coming weeks.’ The locations included in the announcement included counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, and addiction treatment facilities,” the senators wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Now, over 10 months after this announcement, reporters for the Washington Post visited hospitals, fertility clinics, and Planned Parenthood clinics in multiple states and found instances where Google stored the exact name and address of the location visited (e.g. ‘Planned Parenthood – San Francisco Health Center’).”
“Another report found that Google failed to delete sensitive location data in nearly 60 percent of test cases over the last several months,” the senators continued. “Claiming and publicly announcing that Google will delete sensitive location data, without consistently doing so, could be considered a deceptive practice.”
Since the Dobbs decision, the new patchwork of state abortion bans has caused widespread confusion among health care providers over whether they are required to turn over patients’ health information to state and local law enforcement. This fundamentally threatens women’s health, as patients may delay or avoid seeking the care they need out of fear their sensitive health information could be weaponized against them.
Full text of the letter is available HERE.
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