Following the Biden Administration’s executive order Friday calling to protect abortion health access, which included privacy protection recommendations for sensitive data, the FTC committed to cracking down on illegal sharing of such data. But that may not be enough.

The executive order asks the FTC to protect consumer privacy when seeking abortion care. The agency later “committed to using the full scope of its legal authorities” to do so.

• The FTC’s notice warns that sensitive data is protected by numerous federal and state laws, and that hefty fines may follow companies that break them.
• But the releases don’t lay out any new enforcements against sensitive data sharing, instead reiterating current laws and asking federal agencies to consider additional steps to protect data privacy.

These laws aren’t always going after the right kind of data, Protocol chief correspondent Issie Lapowsky told me. Even the most cautious organizations working on providing access to abortions have data privacy policies that leave things like IP addresses and URLs vulnerable.

• Plan C, a website that helps connect people with abortion pills, has trackers that dispatch information to Facebook and Google that can be used to target ads. Planned Parenthood’s website has similar trackers.
• These sites didn’t necessarily implement this kind of tracking for nefarious purposes. Johnny Lin, founder of the tracker blocking app Lockdown Privacy, told Issie that they’re using “off-the-shelf tools that are fairly common,” but now might need to be rethought post-Roe.

Federal legislation containing the right to make a platform delete your data or opt out of collecting it may help, Issie told me, and a bill is currently being considered to allow just that. But until it's passed, the burden of data protection falls on the consumer.

—Nat Rubio-Licht