Police are using Facebook chat logs to prosecute abortion seekers | Mashable

Google, Meta, and online pharmacies can be required to turn data over to law enforcement in states where abortion is illegal. Facebook is often legally required to hand over your data to law enforcement. Credit: Bob Al-Greene / Mashable In the immediate aftermath of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, women worried data from their period-tracking apps could be used to prosecute them for having an abortion. Now, women and people with uteruses need to consider what they write in chat logs, direct messages and search bars online. A report from Insider(Opens in a new tab) notes that ProPublica(Opens in a new tab) found that at least nine online pharmacies that sell abortion medication — Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy, and Online Abortion Pill Rx — were sharing information like users’ web addresses, relative location, and search data with third-party sites like Google. That kind of exchange opens that data up to discovery as part of law enforcement requests. But requests from law enforcement are nothing new.Insider points to the case of Jessica Burgess(Opens in a new tab), who is accused of helping her daughter perform an illegal abortion in their home
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