Tech Firms Are Selling Abortion Clinic Patients' Location Data

Elizabeth Warren went on the attack against data firms this week after it was revealed that these companies have been selling the location data of abortion clinic patients. This data can be sold to just about anyone willing to pay for it, meaning that anti-choice groups could easily target women that have visited these clinics. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening and why it is so dangerous for women.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Elizabeth Warren led the charge this week in sending a letter to tech firms, demanding information about them selling the location data of people who have visited abortion clinics. Now, Elizabeth Warren wrote the letter. Other signatories do include, of course Bernie Sanders, ed Marky, Corey Booker, and several others. But Elizabeth Warren took the charge on this because this is a truly disturbing story, especially with what is happening right now with the possibility of Roe being overturned and Republican states, trying to make it illegal for a woman to get an abortion of any kind, even in the cases of incest and rape. So these tracking firms, there's two firms that they sent letters to. One is safe graph. And the other one, uh, gimme just a moment here is placer.ai. So safe graph and Placer have been tracking the locations of women that are going to these abortion clinics. They're tracking how long they stay there.

How many times they visit the location. Data also kind of shows where they're living. So it shows the commute there and all of this by the way, is for sale to anyone with enough money. And if you're only tracking a couple of individuals or wanting to buy the tracking data of a couple individuals, it's really not even that expensive and safe graft did say, they're like, Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. We anonymized all of our data, right? We're not saying people's names when we sell it. It's totally anonymous. But again, like I said, it not only has them going to the abortion clinic, it also has them going back to their home. So it doesn't exactly take Sherlock homes to figure out who this individual is. At the very least, even if you don't have the name, you can get their home address. And if I have to explain to you why this is dangerous in America today, then clearly you're not even paying attention to the news, but you know what?

I'm gonna do it. Anyway. Women who get abortions in this country, even women who just go to planned parenthood clinics for non abortion services are routinely harassed by these anti-choice individuals on the right. They are the targets of attacks, same thing with the workers in these places, the doctors, and now you can buy their data. You don't have to stake out the clinic and see who's walking in and who's walking out. You could just call a company like safe graft for Placer and say, Hey, I'll tell you what I need. Location data for anybody that may have gone to the clinic at 1 23 main street in, you know, Cleveland. Okay. Do you have a credit card number ready? Cause we're ready to send you the data. That's how this works. It's terrifying. It's not just a ridiculous invasion of our privacy on so many levels, not

Just for the people getting abortions, but literally for anyone, but it's putting women's lives in danger. And if you think that this won't be abused by those Republicans, trying to make it illegal, to get an abortion, to maybe track people who leave their state to go to a blue state, to have the procedure done. You're kidding yourselves. This will be weaponized by these Republicans. So it's a good thing that people like Elizabeth Warren are calling attention to it. Now, before it goes too far.