Hundreds of Google employees are petitioning the company to extend their abortion health care benefits to contract workers and to strengthen privacy protections for Google users searching for abortion information online.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has promised to pay travel and other health care costs for workers seeking abortions out-of-state and to help relocate some workers after the US Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to abortion. did. Wade’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, has paved the way for severe abortion restrictions or restrictions in nearly half of US states.
The benefits of abortion services offered by Google and other tech companies do not include the contractual workforce, which is common in the tech industry and is often paid less and has fewer perks than full-time employees.
A letter signed by more than 650 employees and sent this week to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other Alphabet executives calls on contractors to add to those benefits. The petition was organized by members of the Alphabet Workers Union, a labor union that is trying to gain traction within the company.
It also demands that the company cease any political charity or lobbying of politicians or organizations “responsible for appointing Supreme Court judges who overturned Roe v. Wade and other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control.” But the violation continued.”
Employees want additional protection for Google users, such as by blocking ads that deceptively direct users to anti-abortion “pregnancy crisis” centers.
The employees’ petition states that the company should immediately establish data privacy controls for all health-related activities, including abortion information, so that it “is never saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime.” Go.”
The recent case of a Nebraska teenager facing felony charges over an alleged abortion – allegations that prosecutors were able to bring about thanks to messages received from Facebook – has raised alarm in privacy and technology circles.
As privacy advocates fear that states like Texas and Oklahoma enact bounty hunter laws for citizens to report on suspected abortions, data surveillance provides a plethora of potential sources of evidence for prosecutors.
Google declined to comment about the petition on Thursday. The company said in July that it would begin automatically purging information about users who visit abortion clinics or other locations that could trigger legal problems. Users always have the option to edit their location history themselves, but Google said it will actively do so for them as an added level of security.