Google says it will delete users’ location history for abortion clinic visits

Alphabet Inc.’s Google on Friday said it would delete its members’ location history whenever they visit an abortion clinic, domestic violence shelter, fertility center or other similarly-sensitive place. 

The change, expected to take effect in coming weeks, was announced in a blog post.

“If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit,” Jen Fitzpatrick, a senior Google executive, said. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, Google GOOGL, -0.21%GOOG, -0.27% and other Big Tech companies have been under pressure to limit the amount of information they collect that could be used by law enforcement for abortion investigations and prosecutions.

Google has clashed with the government before on data collection issues: A decade ago, it pushed back against the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection programs.