What we should be asking them is whether they’re now doing everything they can to scrub their datasets of information that could be requested by police and could be used in abortion cases.
Oh, I wish the human beings in big corporations would be handcuffed for breaking US law when they do things like tax evasion, wage theft, have unfair labor practices, etc. I in no way expect these big corporations to do anything for me out of the goodness of their own heart, as the article suggests, but let's not pretend like the law doesn't apply differently to them.
The parent post doesn't imply equal treatment under the law, only that the state can coerce the employees/executives of tech companies into complying.
The question is whether they have enough data to provide to law enforcement if one their users underwent an abortion. If they aren't collecting enough data to determine this then they could just state: "we can't and therefor we won't"
It's a huge red flag if corps think they have enough data about their users that they think they can provide this data.
edit: I'm not talking about social media where people might explicitly say this.
We have already seen law enforcement ask for identification of users and other data of all phones in the vicinity of a crime. It's not a leap to imagine them asking for this same data using a geofence around providers and using that to obtain search history, communications, or other records
The laws differ between what law enforcement can and can't do.
https://johnfbakerlaw.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-g...
I was responding to this from an 'EU' perspective. For the tech companies who do bussiness globally, my objection still stands. In the country I'm living in, the data collected to determine whether someone is pregnant or had an abortion, is data collected beyond what they should be collecting to provide their service.
I have no idea why a company who provides: email, vpn, search, etc... should be able to figure out users health data.
It also means very little that Google and other companies are committing to provide out of state abortions if they are only willing to do so in a way that the insurance provider tracks and reimburses those expenses before handing them over to the state so you can be prosecuted for undergoing a medical procedure. This doesn't actually accomplish getting people safe access to abortion, it's theatre.
I never understood this argument. How are the corporations being "bailed out" in this case? The employees need sustenance regardless of whether they're employed or not. If anyone is getting "bailed out" it's the food stamp programs, because the programs are means tested and receiving income from employment reduces the amount of funds that need to be handed out.
Short of that, I don’t trust them.
Having said that, I’m not sure at all how Snapchat, etc enter into this. They are platforms where people post about themselves to the world. If I had a post saying “I am on the way to get an abortion” I am not sure how or why the company would get between me and the law.
That sound illegal in and of itself.
By this logic no user data can ever be deleted, just in case it becomes relevant to enforcing a future law.
That's cold comfort when the AG of those minority states decide to prosecute the company or their executives.
>By this logic no user data can ever be deleted, just in case it becomes relevant to enforcing a future law.
But it's illegal in 13 states right now.
You have to define what is actually illegal and how the data would be used. Most of the laws are about performing an abortion in the state. I'm not up to date on everything, but generally state jurisdiction ends at the state line. For example, someone in CA can look up high capacity magazines and buy them in another state without ever bringing them back into CA. They can't prosecute you for touching a 30rd mag in a different state.
Fair enough, but this data should be getting deleted for users in the other 37 states right now.
Executives can move to a non-extradition state, Boston and MA have already stated they won't cooperate with extradition requests in relation to abortion prosecutions.
You might also want to consider the long term cost of being parties to a human rights violation under color of law, vs the short-term cost of not doing that.
This point is actually a big part of the original decisions regarding abortion, so the current SCOTUS might very well say yes they do
If the company operates out of California, well, state's rights and that activity isn't illegal in California and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
If the company operates out of one of the states that is making abortion illegal then yea maybe, except that states such as California or New York may make it a requirement that companies collecting such data must delete it upon request from their citizens in order to operate in that state. At which point nobody is keeping their HQ in an anti-abortion state so it probably doesn't matter because there is nobody who can enforce the law. It will just come down to jurisdiction.
But good luck to anti-abortion states in enforcing these laws and trying people for murder or something. State governments are already woefully incompetent at enforcing other laws. I personally will be donating to entities that help fund people who need help covering travel expenses for an abortion.
If they pay for your data (like other entities can and do), yes they can.