Google decides to delete location history of users visiting US Abortion Clinics

United States: Google on Friday announced the location of its users when they visit abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters and other privacy-seeking places will be deleted by the tech giant.

A senior vice president at Google Jen Fitzpatrick wrote, "If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks."

Fertility centres, addiction treatment facilities, and weight loss clinics are the other places where Google will store location data.

This decision by the giant comes a week after the US Supreme Court made a tectonic decision to strip American women of their constitutional abortion rights, prompting mass protests across the country in the dozen states that banned or severely restricted the procedure.

Google and other tech giants have been asked by activists and politicians to restrict the amount of data they collect to avoid law enforcement using it for abortion investigations and prosecutions.

Fitzpatrick also sought to assure that the data privacy of users was taken seriously by the company, according to AFP.

"Google has a long track record of pushing back on overly broad demands from law enforcement, including objecting to some demands entirely," she wrote.

"We take into account the privacy and security expectations of people using our products, and we notify people when we comply with government demands."

Even before the Supreme court ruling, there have been concerns about smartphone data and reproductive rights, when in recent months, many conservative US states passed laws giving the public the right to sue abortion doctors — or those who assist them.

Because of this, in May, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote to Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai asking him to stop collecting smartphone location data to prevent it from becoming a "tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care."