Overturning Roe v. Wade Will Make Data-Privacy Laws an Issue of Life or Death

Apps such as period trackers can share personal information with a host of sources. It's time for federal data-privacy laws.

- Chandra Steele

Privacy is considered a fundamental right, so fundamental that it's the bedrock of the Supreme Court enforcing the protections of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It's also the basis of Roe v. Wade, a decision that is likely about to be overturned by that same court.

Combine the erosion of this legal protection with the many ways that technology infringes on privacy, and women are about to face serious jeopardy from their phones and online behavior.

We are, all of us, maps of our anonymized data. The many snippets of information you put out onto the internet, which you're promised are not traceable to you, when combined make an outline of a person who is unmistakably you.

When women use health apps (particularly period-tracking apps), alter their buying patterns on shopping apps, change the types of foods they consume and log in nutrition apps, use GPS navigation to travel to health clinics or out of state, and search for health care, they are now putting themselves at risk of being tracked by law enforcement or turned in by bounty hunters, who only have to buy a bit of data to cash in on reporting women they suspect are seeking abortions.

THE CRISIS IS ALREADY HERE