SafeGraph says it will stop selling the location data of visitors to Planned Parenthood and other family planning centers “to curtail any potential misuse”
including the authorities — conveniently pre-sifted for visits to reproductive health clinics. A years-in-the-making total regulatory failure. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : After Vice's @josephfcox reported on the ability to buy location data about phones that visited Planned Parenthoods, the company that provided it said that it, uh, isn't going to sell that anymore. https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/... @auren : @nandoodles @SafeGraph we don't sell any data on individuals. and nothing to law enforcement. happy to talk live if that would be helpful to you — either now or after you get back from the tropical vacation. @asteris : Utter scumbags. This is where marketing peoples' data might literally get them killed. https://twitter.com/... @eff : It's too easy for anyone to take advantage of data brokers' stores to cause real harm. That's why the U.S. needs comprehensive data privacy regulation more than ever. https://www.vice.com/... @motherboard : Planned Parenthood isn't performing this data collection or benefiting from it financially. The company selling the data is SafeGraph, which obtains location data from ordinary apps on your phone, like prayer or weather apps. https://www.vice.com/... @mattsfunhouse : @RAZ0RFIST Weird how Snowden has been quiet since late February when Russia invaded Ukraine and now tweets this 🤔🤔 https://twitter.com/... Elizabeth C. McLaughlin / @ecmclaughlin : Let me make something very clear to everyone in the retweets wondering why. Peter Thiel has already sold data tracking the locations of marginalized people to the government. https://twitter.com/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : rampant, unaccountable over-collection/sale of user location data meets a radical authoritarian movement looking to criminalize abortion and those helping abortion seekers what could possibly go wrong https://www.vice.com/... Jeffrey Vagle / @jvagle : What if someone could purchase the detailed location data from your phone—what would they know about you? https://www.vice.com/... Jason Koebler / @jason_koebler : We've seen lawmakers talk for years about how horrified they are that millions of Americans' phones are being surreptitiously tracked and weaponized by sketchy data broker companies and yet they do nothing https://www.vice.com/... @auren : Trust your gut NOT to do something. Trust DATA to say yes. TJ McIntyre / @tjmcintyre : When your reproductive rights and data protection crises merge into an omni-crisis. https://twitter.com/... Hannah Recht / @hannah_recht : This is one of the data brokers that many newsrooms get data from for their own reporting on how people's movements changed in early 2020 or how long people spend in stores. Fellow journalists, let me renew my plea to not use unethical spyware data. https://www.vice.com/... @ozkaterji : Snowden is finally back. It's time for him to do the right thing and resign, his continued role is untenable, and he can not in any way be described as an advocate for press freedom. Resign @Snowden. Now. https://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : Not a hypothetical. You won't have the “right to be left alone” anymore. The state will seize eminent domain over your uterus while the private sector supplies targets for profit. #DataRightsAreHumanRights https://twitter.com/... Elizabeth C. McLaughlin / @ecmclaughlin : And by the way, if you have used Flo, Zuckerberg and Co already have your cycle tracked. https://www.nytimes.com/... Tim Marchman / @timmarchman : Buying location data showing who goes to a given abortion provider and where they go after is trivial; people's lives are at risk: https://www.vice.com/... Elizabeth C. McLaughlin / @ecmclaughlin : Combine that with location tracking information and when you last menstruated and where you are seeking healthcare and you have a target on your back. @angryblacklady : OUTRAGEOUS. There's already a mass surveillance state for people who get abortions. And with the bounty hunter laws, people will become snitches for money. It's sick Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics https://www.vice.com/... Elizabeth C. McLaughlin / @ecmclaughlin : If you think that your data showing when you last menstruated isn't of interest to those who are about to outlaw abortion, whew do I have a wakeup call for YOU. Anthony DeRosa / @anthony : Data firm sells information related to visits to clinics that provide abortions including Planned Parenthood facilities, showing where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterward https://www.vice.com/... Lauren Kirchner / @lkirchner : “SafeGraph classifies ‘Planned Parenthood’ as a ‘brand’ that can be tracked, and the data Motherboard purchased includes more than 600 Planned Parenthood locations in the United States.” https://www.vice.com/... @carnage4life : iPhone users are about to learn the hard way that Apple's ATT “privacy change” doesn't technically protect their privacy when it matters. https://www.vice.com/... @crulge : safegraph is a company embedded in a lot of common apps to track locations, then sells the data - and you can purchase data packages containing everyone who visited a Planned Parenthood (a tracked “brand” in the dataset). We all know how easy it is to de-anonymize data like this. https://twitter.com/... Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : I consider myself a very data-concerned person but finding it hard to imagine period trackers playing a huge role in widespread hunts for women who might get abortions or got them. https://twitter.com/... Joseph Cox / @josephfcox : New: data broker SafeGraph has stopped selling location data of people who visit Planned Parenthood/family planning centers. Came after we found you could buy location data of people traveling to Planned Parenthood for $160. Saw sale stopped last night https://www.vice.com/... Imran Khan / @imranzomg : I think what's almost the most galling thing is that they're not even being evil for that much money https://twitter.com/...
VICEJoseph Cox
Context & Ripple Effects
Clinic visitors had already been targeted through smartphone geo-fenced advertising, while the location-data market also drew on sources such as Life360's precise-location data sales. SafeGraph's move narrows one route by which a particularly sensitive destination signal could be packaged for buyers.
Related coverage shows that demand for reproductive-health location signals did not end with a single vendor's restriction: Tapestri later said two companies sought abortion-clinic visitor data, and brokers were selling large overlapping audience datasets tied to pregnancy and maternity-product signals.
First-order effects
Buyers can no longer obtain SafeGraph's location-data product for visitors to Planned Parenthood and other family-planning centers, reducing the company's exposure to misuse of that segment.
Planned Parenthood visitors are removed from a defined resale channel, while SafeGraph's stated prohibition on sales to law enforcement remains separate from the new clinic-focused restriction.
Second-order effects
Other location-data brokers face sharper scrutiny over whether their products can identify reproductive-health visits; reported buyer interest in abortion-clinic device data shows the commercial demand that remains outside SafeGraph.
Data buyers seeking reproductive-health audiences may shift toward broader pregnancy and maternity datasets, where overlapping broker profiles can supply adjacent targeting signals without a clinic-visit filter.
Third-order effects
Vendor-by-vendor exclusions can make sensitive destinations a distinct compliance category, but they do not eliminate exposure when collection, aggregation, and resale are distributed across multiple brokers and data sources.
The pattern points toward privacy protections being tested at the level of permitted uses and destinations, rather than solely through claims that data is not sold on an individual basis.
The trend: Location-data brokers are increasingly being pressed to treat reproductive-health visits as a sensitive use case that requires restrictions on resale and targeting.
New: companies selling location data on visits to abortion clinics. We know because we just bought some data for $160. Could be used to see clinics being visited by people from across state lines. Threatens both the patient and clinic. The risk is real. https://www.vice.com/...
[Interrupts beautiful tropical vacation to share the following:] A handful of men in adtech are planning to get rich off selling the data of any woman attempting to secure an abortion directly to law enforcement. Here are faces of the men behind @SafeGraph. 1. @auren https://twit…
New: data broker SafeGraph has stopped selling location data of people who visit Planned Parenthood/family planning centers. Came after we found you could buy location data of people traveling to Planned Parenthood for $160. Saw sale stopped last night https://www.vice.com/...
If you are in the United States and you are using a period tracking app, today is good day to delete it before you create a trove of data that will be used to prosecute you if you ever choose to have an abortion. https://www.consumerreports.org/ ...
The sale of the location data raises questions around why companies are selling data based on abortion clinics specifically, and whether they should introduce more safeguards around the purchase of that information, if be selling it at all. https://www.vice.com/...
COVID19 and surveillance: This is quite interesting - the CDC bought cellphone location data to “perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy” https://www.vice.com/...
It's 2022 and random apps on your phone are sending telemetry about your location to brokers who will in turn sell it to anyone else — including the authorities — conveniently pre-sifted for visits to reproductive health clinics. A years-in-the-making total regulatory failure. ht…
@nandoodles @SafeGraph we don't sell any data on individuals. and nothing to law enforcement. happy to talk live if that would be helpful to you — either now or after you get back from the tropical vacation.
It's too easy for anyone to take advantage of data brokers' stores to cause real harm. That's why the U.S. needs comprehensive data privacy regulation more than ever. https://www.vice.com/...
Planned Parenthood isn't performing this data collection or benefiting from it financially. The company selling the data is SafeGraph, which obtains location data from ordinary apps on your phone, like prayer or weather apps. https://www.vice.com/...
Let me make something very clear to everyone in the retweets wondering why. Peter Thiel has already sold data tracking the locations of marginalized people to the government. https://twitter.com/...
rampant, unaccountable over-collection/sale of user location data meets a radical authoritarian movement looking to criminalize abortion and those helping abortion seekers what could possibly go wrong https://www.vice.com/...
We've seen lawmakers talk for years about how horrified they are that millions of Americans' phones are being surreptitiously tracked and weaponized by sketchy data broker companies and yet they do nothing https://www.vice.com/...
The CDC contracted surveillance firm SafeGraph to supply phone location data of tens of millions of Americans and track their compliance with lockdown orders, as well as non-Covid-related issues like “effectiveness of public policy on [the] Navajo Nation.” https://www.vice.com/..…
This is one of the data brokers that many newsrooms get data from for their own reporting on how people's movements changed in early 2020 or how long people spend in stores. Fellow journalists, let me renew my plea to not use unethical spyware data. https://www.vice.com/...
Snowden is finally back. It's time for him to do the right thing and resign, his continued role is untenable, and he can not in any way be described as an advocate for press freedom. Resign @Snowden. Now. https://twitter.com/...
Not a hypothetical. You won't have the “right to be left alone” anymore. The state will seize eminent domain over your uterus while the private sector supplies targets for profit. #DataRightsAreHumanRights https://twitter.com/...
Buying location data showing who goes to a given abortion provider and where they go after is trivial; people's lives are at risk: https://www.vice.com/...
OUTRAGEOUS. There's already a mass surveillance state for people who get abortions. And with the bounty hunter laws, people will become snitches for money. It's sick Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics https://www.vice.com/...
If you think that your data showing when you last menstruated isn't of interest to those who are about to outlaw abortion, whew do I have a wakeup call for YOU.
Data firm sells information related to visits to clinics that provide abortions including Planned Parenthood facilities, showing where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterward https://www.vice.com/...
“SafeGraph classifies ‘Planned Parenthood’ as a ‘brand’ that can be tracked, and the data Motherboard purchased includes more than 600 Planned Parenthood locations in the United States.” https://www.vice.com/...
iPhone users are about to learn the hard way that Apple's ATT “privacy change” doesn't technically protect their privacy when it matters. https://www.vice.com/...
safegraph is a company embedded in a lot of common apps to track locations, then sells the data - and you can purchase data packages containing everyone who visited a Planned Parenthood (a tracked “brand” in the dataset). We all know how easy it is to de-anonymize data like this.…
I consider myself a very data-concerned person but finding it hard to imagine period trackers playing a huge role in widespread hunts for women who might get abortions or got them. https://twitter.com/...