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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsData Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics
A location data firm is selling information related to visits to clinics that provide abortions including Planned Parenthood facilities, showing where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterwards, according to sets of the data purchased by Motherboard.
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The country may also see an increase in vigilante activity or forms of surveillance and harassment against those seeking or providing abortions. With this aggregated location data available to anyone on the open market, customers could include anti-abortion vigilantes as well. Anti-abortion groups are already fairly adept at using novel technology for their goals. In 2016, an advertising CEO who worked with anti-abortion and Christian groups sent targeted advertisements to women sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics in an attempt to change their decision around getting an abortion. The sale of the location data raises questions around why companies are selling data based on abortion clinics specifically, and whether they should introduce more safeguards around the purchase of that information, if be selling it at all.
It's bonkers dangerous to have abortion clinics and then let someone buy the census tracks where people are coming from to visit that abortion clinic, Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely tracks the data selling marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the data. This is how you dox someone traveling across state lines for abortionshow you dox clinics providing this service."
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The company selling the data is SafeGraph. SafeGraph ultimately obtains location data from ordinary apps installed on peoples phones. Often app developers install code, called software development kits (SDKs), into their apps that sends users location data to companies in exchange for the developer receiving payment. Sometimes app users dont know that their phonebe that via a prayer app, or a weather appis collecting and sending location data to third parties, let alone some of the more dangerous use cases that Motherboard has reported on, including transferring data to U.S. military contractors. Planned Parenthood is not the organization performing the data collection nor benefiting from it financially.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vzjb/location-data-abortion-clinics-safegraph-planned-parenthood
FelineOverlord
(3,578 posts)With names and faces.
So we will know who they are.
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
gldstwmn
(4,575 posts)What a roster of douchebags.
Demovictory9
(32,453 posts)orleans
(34,051 posts)ShazzieB
(16,382 posts)🤬
Duppers
(28,120 posts)Sending this to my techie son in NYC who may know of some of these horrible men.
wnylib
(21,437 posts)everywhere with the caption " misogynist."
Both sides can do public reveals.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)Ohio Joe
(21,755 posts)I mean
Not one bit. Im not trying to take away from what the company is doing, it should be criminal. But
An SDK is a collection of software development tools. An SDK MIGHT
And I stress MIGHT, include canned routines. And one of those routines MIGHT
And again I stress MIGHT, be one for moving location data. But
An app still has to have the routine coded in and told to be executed, the SDK is not part of the app.
Maybe Im being nit picky but if an app is stealing your location data and selling it, blame the app and call it out by name, dont blame a development tool.
jfz9580m
(14,529 posts)jfz9580m
(14,529 posts)wnylib
(21,437 posts)use a burner phone if you must have one when going to a women's health care clinic.
Besides the violation of privacy, the tracking of women to Planned Parenthood clinics does not indicate who is getting an abortion. A woman might be getting a birth control device, a mammogram, treatment for an infection, etc.
BigmanPigman
(51,588 posts)I hope they can't walk out of their front doors without being shamed.