Facebook and Google are two tech giants companies that provide online services such as social media and search engines, to millions of people worldwide. These companies collect vast amounts of data on their users.
It has been reported that these companies have provided user data to law enforcement agencies to help them investigate and prosecute people who have sought abortions.
The Nebraska case of Jessica Burgess and her daughter is raising concern worldwide. Burgess and her daughter have been facing charges for allegedly performing an illegal abortion with the aid of pills. Nevertheless, Meta has provided the police with critical evidence to support their case.
According to the report, nine online pharmacies that sell abortion medication —BestAbortionPill.com, Abortion Ease, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, AbortionRx, Secure Abortion Pills, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy, and Online Abortion Pill Rx — were deliberately sharing users’ information including their web addresses, location, and search data with third-party sites including Google.
Following the case, the company responded to "valid legal warrants from local law enforcement" and this happened before a recent Supreme Court decision called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which has changed the laws around abortion in the country and allowed some states to ban it.
However, the warrants released by Meta to this case "did not mention abortion" —the police still used the information to bring charges against the teenager for breaking laws related to abortion. This shows how information that people share on social media can be used against them in ways they might not expect.
Furthermore, giving access to user data to law enforcement has raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties. Many people worldwide already raised concerns about this incident—believing that their online activities should be confidential.
"We comply with government requests for user information only where we have a good-faith belief that the law requires us to do so…"
"…In addition, we assess whether a request is consistent with internationally recognized standards on human rights, including due process, privacy, free expression, and the rule of law. When we do comply, we only produce information that is narrowly tailored to that request. If we determine that a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back and will fight in court, if necessary. We do not provide governments with 'back doors' to people's information," a spokesperson for Meta reported.
According to the data, Meta gives government agencies more than 70% of the data when they request it. Every year, Meta gets more than 400,000 requests for user information from government agencies.
