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Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers
- manwithaplan 4y agoUser chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons.
- lelanthran 4y ago> User chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons. Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? Secondly, if the abortion is illegal, it's not unusual for the state to prosecute someone when the investigation of that person reveals other crimes. What would you propose instead? That any evidence of secondary criminal activity uncovered during an investigation of the primary activity be ignored?
- jeroenhd 4y ago> Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? In case you've been living under a rock for the last while: several American states have banned abortions[0][1] after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade. The federal government failed to implement any laws to safeguard access to abortions so overturning Roe vs Wade was all that conservatives needed. Some states have exceptions for rape and incest, some don't. Texas even offers a sizeable bounty for reporting abortions. This has already resulted in medical care being refused to women carrying stillborn children and other pregnancy complications fatal to either the mother or the child out of fear of prosecution. As for secondary criminal activity: I agree, if the police finds other illegal acts during a legal investigation, they should be allowed to act on that. This is the proof that the whole "if you've got nothing to hide" narrative surrounding state surveillance is dangerous. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-ro... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_States_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_Sta...
- markles 4y ago> In case you've been living under a rock for the last while: It might surprise you, but people who don't live in America probably don't follow, nor care about the politics going on in specific states.
- madeofpalk 4y agoSeems to be weird to roll into the comment section if you don't follow this, nor care.
- aunty_helen 4y agoThis was a big thing my dude. Coverage from all angles in multiple countries outside the us.
- matsemann 4y agoThen they should perhaps read up on the situation before commenting? Like, this is the first sentence in the article we're discussing: > As abortion bans across the nation are implemented and enforced (...) So claiming ignorance is not a valid point.
- misnome 4y agoThis ceases to be a valid excuse when those people then jump into the middle of a discussion exclusively about laws and politics in the US.
- concordDance 4y ago> I agree, if the police finds other illegal acts during a legal investigation, they should be allowed to act on that. I'm not sure this principle is a good one. Almost everyone had probably broken a law or two (yes, this meane there are too many bad laws, let me know if youve an idea of how to solve that), so by investigating someone for some random thing they haven't done you've got a good chance of finding something. This de facto gives imprisonment powers to the police and prosecutors office, giving plenty of opportunity for corruption.
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- mulmen 4y agoYou should do the bare minimum to familiarize yourself before wading in to this particular topic. Abortion legality varies by state in the US. This is a recent development. I wouldn’t expect to be prosecuted, or even investigated, for typing “how people get away with bank robbery” into Google. Or for watching The Dark Knight.
- lelanthran 4y ago> You should do the bare minimum to familiarize yourself before wading in to this particular topic. I did, and my understanding is that any secondary crimes uncovered during an investigation of a crime can be pursued. What about that do you disagree with?
- mulmen 4y ago> Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? This part.
- OkGoDoIt 4y agoIn the USA, abortions are now illegal in many states. This was a major change that took place last year.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Barrin92 4y agoBaffling to me that people still use Messenger. Not even switching the company is necessary, with WhatsApp at least they'd have message encryption.
- dalanmiller 4y agoI’d say most WhatsApp users don’t realize they are backing up to Google Drive in clear text.
- aboringusername 4y agoThis is key. Both parties need to trust that their messages are staying within the realms of WhatsApp itself, and with the usage of disappearing mode, not leaving any traces of a conversation. They should probably be using encryption within the chat itself (and not, you know, speaking in plain English) to add another layer. Perhaps changing the keys frequently via an agreed method (thinking about how to do that safely without leaving another trace) to render older messages 100% undecryptable. But yeah, chances are all of that data is going to be accessed and they agreed to it! It's right there in the privacy policy people don't bother reading
- jeroenhd 4y agoFor those using WhatsApp: you can actually encrypt the GDrive backups, and has been for a while now: https://www.androidpolice.com/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption/ https://www.androidpolice.com/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption... The default setting is still unencrypted backups, though.
- qwray 4y agoI miss the good old days when you could just open a telephone book and no one would know what you were looking up. Now everything you do is recorded by a third party. Don't use Facebook or Google.
- npteljes 4y agoSince communication was unencrypted, listening in was easy though. Even the instant messengers, up to 2005-2007, sent their messages in cleartext. So listening in was easy, but since storage was much more expensive, I don't think they bothered with recording them too much. Regarding your conclusion, leaving FB and G is not even the hardest part. The hardest part is that your network probably won't follow.
- clbrmbr 4y ago> We do not provide governments with 'back doors' to people's information. PRISM? Serious question. I thought that was still a thing.
- 31337Logic 4y agoAnd they wonder why we don't trust Big Tech.
- DennisAleynikov 4y agoWe did it. We made the dystopia
- throwntoday 4y agoAbortions were a convenient way to keep women locked into the workforce. There could be no escape from wageslaving. Now that the population is in the shitter, they criminalize abortion.
- joaonmatos 4y agoDisingenuous. Contraception and abortions freed women from being locked into patriarchal family structures (see the thousands of years of history where women were passed from father, to brother, to husband with no choice in the matter).
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoNot entirely, but it is a contributing factor: Women aren't suck having children and stuck staying with some guy because she can't support herself. It isn't the only benefit nor the only outcome of having these - we've had different sorts of abortion and imperfect contraception for thousands of years. Women are still stuck in such societies. Safe contraception and safe abortions keep women from dying. Women are able to have fewer children, spaced further apart, making for healthier women and healthier children - even in such traditional societies, assuming folks have access to these things.
- raverbashing 4y agoExactly For men, it was always "pro-choice", child support and paternity tests are a recent invention (and don't compare with how hard it is to raise a kid) If men got pregnant you could have your abortion together with your haircut
- numbers_guy 4y agoIt shouldn't be up to Facebook/Google to decide what is a crime, nor in which cases wiretapping should be allowed.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Y_Y 4y agoAnd as far as I know it isn't. At least these companies certainly comply with lawful warrants. They may be more helpful in cases of their choosing (e.g. CSAM) but are they really expected to refuse when a court orders them to assist with an investigation on the basis that they (to the extent possible for a company) disagree with the law in question?
- lelanthran 4y agoI wanted to reply to GP with something along these lines, but I could not tell what the GPs comment actually meant, it was too ambiguous. > It shouldn't be up to Facebook/Google to decide what is a crime, nor in which cases wiretapping should be allowed. Could mean either: 1. FB/Google should be prevented from deciding what is and is not a crime. They don't set the laws. Or 2. FB/Google aren't setting the laws, so can't be blamed when complying with those laws. Maybe it's my sleepiness, but I just cannot decide which of the two statements were intended by GP.
- jeroenhd 4y agoAbortions are now a crime in several American states, close if not equal to murder. These companies just do what they've always done when it comes to murder cases: hand over the data when the authorities demand it through warrants. As they should, in theory. Facebook and Google are not to blame here; they're simply doing what the law demands of them. These companies are not above the law, they cannot refuse warrants. Blame Nebraskan and American federal law for this situation. With a bit of luck, this situation will make these companies put more priority into E2EE. Had these conversations been done through Signal, there was likely nothing to be found or handed over.
- DeathArrow 4y agoAren't they handling user data for any other case of law breaking?
- aww_dang 4y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/pakistan-asks-facebook-twitter-help-identify-blasphemers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/pakistan-asks-... >Pakistan asks Facebook and Twitter to help identify blasphemers >Companies approached in effort to locate Pakistanis at home or abroad so they can be prosecuted or potentially extradited
- Semaphor 4y agoIs this unexpected? Of course, they follow warrants, why wouldn’t they?
- amelius 4y agoBecause they didn't support E2EE and homomorphic encryption.
- PradeetPatel 4y agoThey never claimed that they support E2EE... The users signed the EULA and know what their rights are.
- psychphysic 4y agoThat did actually surprise me, I thought Facebook took on WhatsApp/insta messaging which is encrypted?
- supriyo-biswas 4y agoThe Techcrunch article[1] (linked in TFA) mentions FB Messenger was used, which does not have E2EE. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/27/digital-data-roe-wade-reproductive-privacy https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/27/digital-data-roe-wade-repr...
- jeroenhd 4y agoTragically enough, Facebook Messenger does actually support E2EE. However, it needs to be enabled per contact/chat. Facebook's bad UX may just have become a driving force behind the conviction. Facebook is improving E2EE according to their blog: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/expanding-features-for-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenger/ https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/expanding-features-for-end...
- lapcat 4y ago"An investigation by ProPublica found online pharmacies that sell abortion medication such as mifepristone and misoprostol are sharing sensitive data, including users' web addresses, relative location, and search data, with Google and other third-party sites — which allows the data to be recoverable through law enforcement requests." "we also know that social media isn't likely to stand up to illegitimate law enforcement requests, because of the fact that they fear their own liability, or because of the fact that it's just too costly to stand up."
- croes 4y agoThose who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. Unless they change the laws and suddenly you have something to hide.
- CM30 4y agoYep. Too many people design systems (both technical and otherwise) under the assumption 'their team' will always be in control, and it'll be their enemies who suffer. Or that hey, this power will never be abused because the system won't allow it, and those in control will always have our best interests in mind. Don't collect more data than you have to, limit the power of any systems you implement, and always design things under the assumption your enemies will take control of it in future.
- kornhole 4y ago>Don't collect more data than you have to, limit the power of any systems you implement That is basically the opposite of what these companies do, and their business models rely it. Some people realize we live in a surveillance dystopia with corrupt government, and others have not yet realized it.
- Shish2k 4y ago> Don't collect more data than you have to, limit the power of any systems you implement, and always design things under the assumption your enemies will take control of it in future. This is great advice if you want to design Good systems, but under barely-regulated capitalism, those who design Good systems will be out-competed and put out of business by those who design Profitable systems :(
- dspillett 4y agoI have nothing to hide, beyond a bit of casual piracy, at least until laws change significantly, but people I care about might. My distaste for corporate stalking is, if I'm perfectly honest, at least partly selfish feelings of discomfort in losing what privacy I still have, but it is mostly concern for what some will use information about others to enforce.
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- psychphysic 4y agoThe only take away from this article is that somehow they could read the change logs. Doesn't that fly in the face of metas own claims to not be able to? BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime.
- unmole 4y agoWhatsApp is supposedly end to end encrypted. Does Meta claim anything similar about its other platforms?
- timbit42 4y agoE2E encrypted doesn't mean they don't know who is messaging whom. If there is suspicious contact, can they request who contacted a pharmacy? Then they can ask the pharmacy why so-and-so contacted them. A better option would be something like Briar which hides IPs via Tor.
- mulmen 4y agoIs it really? I always assumed it was like Zoom end to end encryption where one of the “ends” is a Facebook data center. How can a user prove the claim of end to end encryption?
- caf 4y agoThere was a bit of a song and dance when Whatsapp adopted the Signal protocol. Certainly if you choose not to back up your Whatsapp messages, your old messages aren't available when you switch phones. If they're not end-to-end encrypted, they're engaging in a lot of deception to indicate that they are.
- jeroenhd 4y agoThey are if you enable encryption (with your own key, of course). The default backups are insecure, though.
- feeela 4y agoIs this real? This sounds like a weird trip back into medieval times. Who is the head of that modern Inquisition?
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoWhat sounds like a trip into medieval times? Government control over corporations? Corporation oversight over private lives? Isn’t that what the new generation of enlightened and progressive people wanted?
- fluxinflex 4y agoBut wait, isn't that what was happening in medieval times: the church ruled over the peasants, the kings ruled over the states and everyone was happy living in a liberal and free world - well at least they believed that.
- aww_dang 4y agohttp://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/02/decentralization-hidden-in-dark-ages.html http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/02/decentralization-... Relatively more liberal than the Roman era and more decentralized than our current era.
- shakow 4y agoThat was the theory; in practice, the very limited communication (hard to handle fast-evolving situations when couriers from Rome to Amiens take a few weeks at best) & enforcement means (you have 100 guys with spears? We are 200 with pitchforks, come get us) led to a much more decentralized power structure than what is stereotypically understood.
- nurgasemetey 4y agoWhat employees will think about their companies?
- aboringusername 4y agoAlthough it probably sucks for the individuals at the receiving end of the scales of justice I believe this is an important public education campaign which will hopefully raise awareness of the scale and extent of data collection. There seems to be a disconnect between data being collected from a terminal, how rich that data can be, and what it can be used for. If you use a digital keyboard your every keystroke can, and probably is being logged - we used to call this spyware, now even the keyboard app on your phone has clipboard sync (and it's built into Windows too!). People need to be aware for example when activating javascript (and most don't know what that is), how much the various APIs are collecting and storing, which is used to build a "fingerprint" of your device. The web (and digital devices in general) is actively hostile, anyone who uses noscript can attest to that and anyone who goes onto any news media website and opens "network" via web dev console can see how much data is flying to god knows where to do god knows what. If you want to defy the state you need to be a master spy, this means actually thinking how you research, and probably learning a thing or two from Snowden (are you on wifi? open hotspot? is your device logging anything, if so, what? do you need to destroy the device afterwards incase it gets forensically inspected? If you could read /var/log what would be there and would it reveal anything about your situation? If you can't read /var/log then your device is actively hostile and not worth the risk). Privacy is effort, and, in these cases, the 'seekers' are not spending enough effort on hiding their tracks and they are like fish in shallow water, easy pickings. The ones who are clued up are not the ones who end up making the press, because they know exactly how to cover their tracks, and make it impossible to prove or disprove a fact, which, thankfully at least at this moment, is how justice works (for the most part).
- Chronoyes 4y ago[dead]
- f6v 4y agoIs the issue that Meta and Google comply with the law(turning in the data to crime investigators), or that the law itself is medieval? I mean, both are concerning in their own way. But the latter seems like a much much bigger problem.
- alxmng 4y agoBoth.
- kornhole 4y agoBoth are problems, but naive people expect Google and Facebook to do differently. Google has always been intertwined with the government, and Facebook was absorbed early on. I am not denigrating people by using the word naive. Those who are most naive need protection and knowledge. More tyrannical/medieval rule seems to be trending.
- brandmeyer 4y agoThis comment is a fantastic example of the meta-battle which the tech industry has been waging. They have worked very hard to change the very questions in the privacy debate. In their terms, collection of the data itself is never under debate; all debates are framed in terms of how they are allowed to use data. In this case, the failure isn't the law or the company's compliance with it. It was the collection and retention of the data in the first place.
- diceduckmonk 4y ago> comply with the law What concerns you about this?
- psychoslave 4y agoNothing really. Here is the list of this ethnic people you want to eliminate in conformance with the law you just passed on mandatory abortion and sterilization, oh my great overlord. Congratulations for your successful putsch by the way.
- deleted 4y ago
- bboygravity 4y agoInteresting to realize that I now have to equally self-censor whether I'm using WeChat (China) versus any US-based service (Western world) for communication..
- A_D_E_P_T 4y agoUnless you're working on sensitive or compartmentalized tech, and talking about it on the platform, I don't even see why you'd need to self-censor on WeChat. The Chinese, for all their faults, don't seem to care what you do in your spare time. That said, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable discussing my medical history over Gmail or Facebook, even if ostensibly "private."
- concordDance 4y ago> The Chinese, for all their faults, don't seem to care what you do in your spare time. I thought pyrography (for example) was illegal in China
- lioeters 4y agoToday I learned about pyrography and a particularly dangerous technique called "fractal burning", where people use high-voltage electricity to burn patterns into wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_burning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_burning The result is quite beautiful, but I can see why some countries might want to regulate or prohibit it. Personally, I think people should be allowed to take such risks if they choose to do so.
- projektfu 4y agoThat would be strange for a traditional Chinese art that's probably sold at airports and gift shops.
- concordDance 4y agoAn autocorrupt of pornography
- ThinkBeat 4y ago>Facebook and Google comply with the law. >When presented with a valid warrant they hand over the data requested. The article seems to imply that the big social media companies should selectively comply with a valid warrant based on what crime the accused has committed. I think you should either have problem with the entire procedure or agree that the procedure is valid.
- SilasX 4y agoFor me, the takeaway is that they collect and persist too much personalized data about users, and it's a shame that people only start caring when it affects abortion access. Now, Google, to their credit, claims[1] they now purge information about users who visit abortion clinics or related places, but ... that isn't very reassuring. Even if they excise some related portion of user data, they still have enough other data to figure it out once law enforcement has access -- and there's more stuff the law would be after than just abortion! You'd be expecting Google to play whack-a-mole with every latest "activity that needs protection"! But yes, you're correct, it's far too late to identify what Google's doing wrong after abortion is illegal, and after Google has that data about you, and after they're served with a warrant on that basis. [1] This article https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/18/google-workers-sign-petition-asking-company-to-protect-people-s-abortion-search-data/ https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/18/google-workers-sign-p... which cites this blog post: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-peoples-privacy-on-health-topics/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-pe...
- lapcat 4y ago> The article seems to imply that the big social media companies should selectively comply with a valid warrant They already selectively comply: "According to internal statistics provided by Meta, the company complies with government requests for user data more than 70% of the time".
- ThinkBeat 4y agoWell 100% is more than 70%. So we can if we want to assume that means 100% A much more informative statement would be: "We turn down about 25% of all requests"
- aww_dang 4y agoThe framing is inflammatory. What most people can agree upon is that the surveillance state is out of control. I'm sure I'll be flamed into oblivion here, but it is worth considering the headline from the perspective of the anti-abortionists. If we cannot empathize or attempt to understand those who disagree, what is the point of having a discussion? "FB and Google hand over user data, help to prosecute baby killers" Reasonable people can disagree on the topic of abortion or at what stage of pregnancy it is acceptable. HN is not the place where I want to have that discussion. It has already been explored at depth elsewhere.
- concordDance 4y agoI've often been puzzled by why the abortion argument is seen as a binary. The majority of people in the developed world feel that the abortion legality line should be somewhere between conception and birth. Honestly, based on my somewhat biased sampling, there's probably a similar number of people who think infanticide should sometimes be legal as people who think a single fertilized egg has a right to life.
- aww_dang 4y agoThis is definitely a big part of the problem. Media outlets are looking for outrage. They need only conflate a ban on late term abortion with a blanket ban. For the other side, vice versa.
- emsign 4y agoIf you would have read the article to the end you would have noticed that is puts the blame on law enforcement and legislation.
- lapcat 4y agoThink of it this way though: 50 years of legal precedent was overturned last year. Women who are young enough to get abortions have lived their entire lives not being considered murderers, legally. Abortion was an explicitly protected legal right. Now suddenly, a woman is transformed overnight from a citizen freely exercising their legal right into an illegal murderer — but of course only in certain localities. How are they supposed to deal with this massive U-turn? Can we not empathize with them? It's one thing to make providing abortions illegal. It's quite another thing to prosecute the women.
- nl 4y agoNote that you can turn on E2E encryption in FB Messenger (as well as WhatsApp). It does lose a few features, but people should probably be aware it is possible.
- timbit42 4y agoMeta still knows who is messaging whom. Sending a message to a pharmacy or certain doctors would raise flags. E2EE isn't completely safe. Briar is decentralized (no central company or servers to watch) and uses Tor to hide IPs.
- dools 4y agoThis is not the story. The story is Roe v. Wade overturned due to heinous corruption of the US political process in favour of the religious right and free market libertarians.
- nilmask 4y agoSafeguarding the privacy of a user's personal information is a technological problem that should be solved through the development and correct usage of cryptographic primitives that secure that data.
- dools 4y agoI completely disagree. If you're trying to subvert the political/legal process through innovation then you're only accelerating the path to dystopia.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- salawat 4y agoWrong. It's a people problem. Any technological measure capable of reliably recovering information will be utilized or forced to be tapped by law enforcement. The problem is the law. The solution is not tech. The solution is changing the law. The cryptographic primitive approach is an elitist wet dream. The moment you employ it in enough sketchy contexts, then it itself will be seen as evidence of criminal doing. The UK/Europe has already been sniffing in that direction w.r.t possession of heavily encrypted phone handsets/telephony systems.
- concordDance 4y agoRoe v. Wade was a corruption of the political progress (and I say this as a non-american pro-abortionist). If you want to have a law on abortion make an actual law.
- krapp 4y ago
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]
- mgraczyk 4y agoIMO the most realistic way to improve this situation is to get more people using E2EE chat apps, and fight against any attempt by government to weaken or ban encryption. Meta the company hates this and is spending money on ads trying to get people to use WhatsApp with end to end encryption for things like this.
- learnedSloth 4y agoIs the next step extending citizen rights to unborn babies?