Roe’s downfall raises privacy red flags

The Future. As America copes with the new reality of a post-Roe America, Big Tech is becoming a battleground — specifically, whether companies will need to surrender personal data to law authorities. What happens in the next several months could set an entirely new precedent for privacy rights.

The data wars
In post-Roe America, data privacy rights are also coming under scrutiny.

• Big Tech firms like Google, Facebook, and more may be required to surrender users’ private data: location, texts, emails, search queries, and even site visits.
• According to Axios, demand for such information could be used as evidence against those seeking abortions.

Next move
In response, Google announced a new program on Friday that would automatically delete location data, such as “particularly personal” locations like abortion clinics, fertility centers, and more.

But location data is only a small piece of the puzzle. Tech companies collect tons and tons of data that could be potentially leveraged to prosecute those seeking abortions in states without protections.

The future is murky, but one thing’s for sure, all eyes will be on how Big Tech reacts to — the overturning of Roe.