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These Companies Know When You're Pregnant--And They're Not Keeping It Secret (UPDATED)
Last edited Mon Aug 1, 2022, 07:11 PM - Edit history (1)
Updated August 1. 4 pm Pacific.
Data brokers resist pressure to stop collecting info on pregnant people
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/01/data-information-pregnant-people-00048988
Short:
In the three months since POLITICO reported the draft opinion against Roe, numerous congressional Democrats have sent letters to data brokers urging them to stop the practice, promised to interrogate the companies about their collections and introduced bills to restrict reproductive health data from being collected and sold.
But in the absence of federal data privacy legislation or any likely chance of it getting the support needed to pass, many brokers aren’t taking heed.
...
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who introduced a bill in January that would ban targeted advertising, has been calling on companies to stop collecting data on women’s health entirely.
“Data brokers and all companies that collect personal data have an obligation to ensure intimate data about women’s health isn’t collected in the first place, allowing prosecutors in states that criminalize abortion to use it against women,” Eshoo said in an email.
Lots here, but that's the essence. Lots of small players, unlikely to do anything unless data protection laws are passed (DID I MENTION, WE NEED A SUPER-MAJORITY IN BOTH HOUSES?) or companies are shamed in public (call for hearings, lots of them?)
https://gizmodo.com/data-brokers-selling-pregnancy-roe-v-wade-abortion-1849148426
And thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision to overthrow Roe v. Wade, a good chunk of the nation’s police and private citizens can go after people seeking abortions and the doctors that would serve them if there’s enough evidence.
And in 2022, there is plenty of data to go around and plenty of players willing to pawn it off if the price is right. A Gizmodo investigation into some of the nation’s biggest data brokers found more than two dozen promoting access to datasets containing digital information on millions of pregnant and potentially pregnant people across the country. At least one of those companies also offered a large catalogue of people who were using the same sorts of birth control that’s being targeted by more restrictive states right now. ( https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/19/some-states-already-are-targeting-birth-control )
In total, Gizmodo identified 32 different brokers across the U.S. selling access to the unique mobile IDs from some 2.9 billion profiles of people pegged as “actively pregnant” or “shopping for maternity products.” Also on the market: data on 478 million customer profiles labeled “interested in pregnancy” or “intending to become pregnant.” You can see the full list of companies for yourself here. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10XtXHs4FFV6yzaIwHLGEMsUzclbtZHdNIfXcIfZnhl8/edit?usp=sharing )
...
In other cases, these companies were doing exactly what Target had done all those years before: instead of collecting data from end-users that were explicitly saying they’re pregnant, the brokers instead modeled a core base of potentially pregnant users with internal data analysis.
HOW?
That's long and I am over the limit on quotes, so here's a picture. The process of data gathering is shady and kept secret.
See the linked article for Gizmodo's best guesses.
I'd like to say that there's an answer, but I don't have one, other than:
• These anti-abortion laws are blatantly unconstitutional, since they enforce ONE religion's views on all others.
• (opinion) The "constitutional scholars" appointed to the USSC, drunks, lechers, stooges for Putin, flunkies and glorified teaching assistants, are STRICT DESTRUCTIONISTS of the Constitution, and need to be removed by every legal means.These days, legal seems to mean "Whatever you can get away with."
* Idiot anti-abortion and contraception laws need to be challenged and appealed all the way to the USSC (oops!). See previous point.
• STRICT AS FUCKING HELL DATA PROTECTION LAWS. If the Secret Service can lose its data, SO CAN DATA BROKERS,
31 replies
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Those companies are way out of line on our privacy.
There's already been a story about a clerk—a clerk, mind you, not even a pharmacist—refusing to sell condoms to a woman. 
Sex for procreation only.
