As if harassing women outside clinics and forcing doctors to present false information about risks in the names of “informing” them, anti-choice groups have taken a page out of the worst surveillance state nightmares. As reported by Sandra Coutts on Rewire:
Last year, an enterprising advertising executive based in Boston, Massachusetts, had an idea: Instead of using his sophisticated mobile surveillance techniques to figure out which consumers might be interested in buying shoes, cars, or any of the other products typically advertised online, what if he used the same technology to figure out which women were potentially contemplating abortion, and send them ads on behalf of anti-choice organizations?
The company in question is the Boston based Copley Advertising, under CEO John Flynn. They’re working with groups like RealOptions and Live Action.
The concept is generally called geo-fencing, which takes advantage of location services in apps to target ads directly to the phones within a proscribed area, via email or text. When paired with consumer data profiles acquired through search histories, the ads can be selectively targeted to specific demographics within these areas.
So far this has simply lead to annoyance, but this represents a major abuse of the system. Its an expansion of the intimidation and misinformation campaign these groups already engage in. These ads are often for crisis pregnancy centers, the notorious fake organizations that pose as reproductive health clinics, and include the usual barrage of false information about the risks of abortion.
Of course, its worse than that. The micro-targeting itself is very creepy, and even in the current form borders on stalking and harassment. The rules surrounding this sort of data gathering are intended to anonymize the end user. Under normal circumstances, advertisers can’t see who they’re targeting specifically, only that a certain advertising ID matches the location and profile they chose.
It can get worse. In theory someone willing to put in the work and with the technical savvy could profile someone using the data connected to the advertising ID, charting locations and then examining them to pull addresses, and then from there work up the chain to identification.
But it’s far easier to use social engineering and phishing schemes. By posing as something else, these groups could prompt someone to enter their personal data — name, address, phone number.
We know anti-choice groups want this information. They’ve copied down license plates, even followed people, in order to find patients, staffers, nurses, and doctors. At a minimum this represents a risk of harassment. In reality, we know it presents a real physical or even mortal danger.
It’s a disgusting and unethical use of technology, one that could be used to help people. Facebook Safety Check, for example, might use it to push alerts and near real-time check in to users. It’s also used for child and patient location services, to warn if someone is entering a dangerous area, or to push severe weather warnings. But in the current environment, little to no regulation exists to protect people. Self-regulatory bodies are clearly not enough.
That Flynn and Copley Advertising are abusing this technology, to intimidate women trying to attend to their medical needs, is beyond the pale. Clearly no action is too vile in the war against a woman’s right to choose.