Digital data is becoming key evidence in abortion lawsuits
Last week, a man in Texas filed a wrongful death suit against three women who he says helped his ex-wife get access to abortion medication. A key component in the case is a trail of text messages sent between the women, snippets of which you can now find pretty easily if you Google the particulars. It has me thinking once again that the digital applications of post-Roe abortion laws might cause more people in the U.S. to care about their digital privacy than they have in the past. The Texas lawsuit — the first of its kind since the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Dobbs decision and since Texas officially banned the procedure — may be a case in point, as screenshots of group chats become pivotal, potentially incriminating evidence.
The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill also threatens to blow a hole in people’s digital privacy. That’s because the bill — which has been through a few drafts and has yet to be finalized — would require tech companies offering person-to-person messaging services to adopt "accredited technology" to filter out material containing images of child abuse. The bill sets a host of rules intended to prevent kids from encountering harmful stuff online. But critics and companies alike are arguing that the messaging component could do more to jeopardize people’s safety than to protect it.
To stay legal in the U.K. under this law, services offering end-to-end encryption, like WhatsApp or Signal, would need to weaken their privacy protections. This week, WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said that WhatsApp would stop offering the service in the U.K. if the bill passes. He followed in the footsteps of Signal president Meredith Whittaker, who pledged to walk in early March. “Let me be blunt,” she wrote in a blog post on the issue, “encryption is either broken for everyone, or it works for everyone. There is no way to create a safe backdoor.” Whittaker also pointed out that the law could inspire “copycat” laws in countries where there are no guarantees of due process. Indeed, a handful of authoritarian countries already have anti-encryption laws on the books. It will be interesting to see if Apple — another major provider of encrypted messaging, through iMessage — follows suit.
Following a March 6 prison riot, authorities in Mauritania shut off mobile internet service nationwide for nearly a week. Two prison guards were killed and four people who had been convicted of terrorism and treason escaped. One had attempted to assassinate Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the former president of the North African nation. Service was restored on March 11, three of the fugitives were killed and the fourth was arrested.