SPARC Raises Alarm on How Publishers Selling Browsing Data Threatens Abortion Access
Amidst rising data privacy risks and recent abortion bans, advocacy group “SPARC” revealed that academic publishing company Elsevier has some unnerving data collection practices that could put people’s rights at risk.
Even digital period trackers now pose a threat to women who seek to exercise their bodily autonomy. As dystopian as that sounds, the surveillance hardly ends there, with police seeking all kinds of personal data to prosecute women under increasingly strict abortion laws, and data brokers making this all too easy. Even pharmacies are sharing information with law enforcement without a warrant, and a massive academic platform engaging in surveillance puts many people’s rights in danger.
Elsevier, the largest academic publisher on Earth, now has access to browsing data for those who regularly use ScienceDirect, through their schools or universities, to access digital educational material. Academics and educators are also not safe from this crackdown on data privacy. A study published by SPARC showed that personal data and search history are at risk of being siphoned to data brokers.
The study further elaborated that ScienceDirect harvests data and uses cookies to track users beyond the platform, which is in conflict with library data privacy guidelines and practices. Data that is being taken from users doesn’t stop at the intents and purposes of optimizing algorithms. Rather, they collect the behavioral and geolocation data of users for surveillance. The reasons are unknown, but not any less unnerving.
The study clarified that it cannot be confirmed whether or not personal data is being sold to data brokers that might put the information in hands that could weaponize it against people, but Elsevier is a subsidiary of data broker RELX, and even if that weren’t the case, there would still be a tangible threat. It would hardly be the first time data like this was turned against people behind closed doors.
SPARC’s report says, “The analysis underlines the concerns this tracking should raise, particularly when the same company is involved in surveillance and data brokering activities. Elsevier is a subsidiary of RELX, a leading data broker and provider of ‘risk’ products that offer expansive databases of personal information to corporations, governments, and law enforcement agencies.”
Possibilities include closeted LGBTQ+ students being coerced or outed because their data has been taken without their consent. Women seeking abortion medication could be doxxed to law enforcement in states where abortion has been banned. Activists could have their geolocation exposed to government agencies that might want to silence them. Undocumented immigrants might also receive a visit from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if their data has been leaked, and this wouldn’t be a distant reality considering ICE already uses data brokers to bypass surveillance restrictions. Needless to say, anyone who already faces persecution would be opened up to harm.
The worst part of it all is that there is no opt-out for the trackers or cookies at ScienceDirect, as reported by SPARC findings. It is also unclear if user data is terminated once users delete their ScienceDirect profiles. In an increasingly digital world, protections against the misuse of this kind of data are sorely lacking, and many people don’t even realize this kind of surveillance is happening. Hopefully reports like this one can raise enough awareness to help privacy protections catch up to the increasing proliferation of our personal information.
(featured image: ValeryBrozhinsky/Getty Images)
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