After Roe's overturn: the abortion surveillance state [View all]

The New York-based privacy group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) released a chilling report last month detailing the digital surveillance threats facing pregnant women who seek abortion information and services, and how these threats could escalate dramatically if the Supreme Court repeals abortion rights and states criminalize abortion.

“Police, prosecutors and private anti-abortion litigants will weaponize existing American surveillance infrastructure to target pregnant people and use their health data against them in a court of law,” according to the report, titled “Pregnancy Panopticon: Abortion Surveillance After Roe.” “This isn’t speculation—it’s already happening.”

The report explains how anti-abortion governments and private entities are already using cutting-edge digital technologies to surveil women’s search history, location data, messages, online purchases and social media activities by using geofencing, keyword warrants, big data, and more. “Every aspect of pregnant people’s digital lives will be put under the microscope, examined for any hints that they sought (successfully or otherwise) to end their pregnancy,” states the report.

Modern surveillance tools will help states to enforce criminal abortion bans on a scale that was technically impossible before Roe, posing an unprecedented threat to pregnant women and those helping them access care.

https://thebulletin.org/2022/06/after-roes-overturn-the-abortion-surveillance-state/