The petition, which was sent to Google executives this week, comes as the tech giant has found itself under fire from lawmakers, privacy advocates and some of its own employees for its handling of sensitive abortion data and abortion clinic search results in the wake of Roe’s demise. It also comes a week after news that police obtained Facebook messages between a Nebraska mother and her teenage daughter that authorities allege show evidence of an illegal self-managed medication abortion.
“Recently I read about Facebook handing over information that was used to arrest a user seeking abortion access and it became clear that tech companies are not going far enough to protect workers and users in a post-Roe America,” Bambi Okugawa, a data center technician at Google and member of AWU, said in a statement Thursday. “If tech companies … truly want to be an ally to those looking to get an abortion, they need to refuse to share [users’] information regarding abortion searches and do their due diligence to make sure false information that could make users unsafe isn’t circulating the site.”
Google did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
In response to the outcry, Google announced in July that it would start deleting user location history for visits to abortion clinics and fertility clinics, among other destinations. Google also said it would add an option for Fitbit users to bulk delete their menstruation data. The Google-owned fitness tracker previously gave users the option to delete period-tracking data on a record-by-record basis.
But employees don’t think the company is doing enough. “Google can and should do better,” Alejandra Beatty, the Southwest Chapter Lead of AWU and a technical program manager at Alphabet-owned Verily, said in a statement.
To meet demands, AWU wants the company to create a dedicated abortion information task force with 50% employee representation, similar to its Covid-19 pandemic approach.
