Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) provides location and search data for thousands of users each year in response to subpoenas and warrants from law enforcement investigators. Now, with reproductive rights being legally challenged across the United States, Google employees are petitioning the company not to give up user information relating to abortion.
Roughly 650 workers signed the petition calling on executives at Google's parent company Alphabet to protect abortion-related search and location data. The majority of those workers are a part of the Alphabet Worker's Union which is also calling for protections for searches related to transgender healthcare.
"If Google or Facebook (NASDAQ: META) or any tech company wants to present the face of being a compassionate company and an ally for people that need reproductive health care or gender affirming health care, then they need to back that up in their actions by protecting privacy," said union spokesperson Bambi Okugawa.
Following the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June, trigger laws in several states have already come into effect, leaving those who provide or assist in abortion care and those who help pregnant individuals cross state lines vulnerable to prosecution.
Almost immediately after the overturning of Roe was announced, privacy and reproductive health advocates began warning about the potential risks of searching for or communicating about abortion online, and for good reason. Already, Facebook gave law enforcement agents access to private messages between a mother and daughter in Nebraska as a part of the agents' investigation into an alleged abortion.
"There are situations where a woman could die if she does not receive certain healthcare services," Okugawa said. "It's on the shoulders of tech companies to do what they can to protect them."
Along with blocking law enforcement access to abortion-related data, workers are also calling on Google to stop showing misleading advertisements from fake abortion providers and unreliable healthcare information in search results. The petition also asks the company to provide the same financial assistance for contract workers seeking out-of-state abortions as it does for traditional employees.
"It's very fair for us as a union to say you should provide to contractors - security staff and vendors - the same benefits that we get," says Okugawa.
Workers are also asking Google to end donations to any individuals or groups "responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control."
According to Google, it began automatically purging any location data showing visits to "particularly personal" locations, including abortion clinics and domestic violence centers, starting in July.
"We remain committed to protecting our users against improper government demands for data," Google wrote in a release in July, "and we will continue to oppose demands that are overly broad or otherwise legally objectionable."