A recent report from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden revealed that cellphone location data was used to send millions of anti-abortion ads to individuals who had visited Planned Parenthood offices. This data was collected by a now-defunct data broker called Near Intelligence and used by ads from The Veritas Society, a nonprofit founded by Wisconsin Right to Life. The ads targeted people who had visited 600 locations in 48 states from 2019 through 2022, with over 14 million ads in Wisconsin alone. Senator Wyden is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to intervene in the bankruptcy case for Near Intelligence to ensure the location information collected is destroyed and not sold to another data broker.

This issue has raised concerns about the privacy of individuals' reproductive health information and the potential for it to be used in targeted ads, law enforcement investigations, or by abortion opponents looking to harm those seeking to end pregnancies. While there is currently no evidence of widespread use of this data in law enforcement investigations, there is a growing push for legislation to protect sensitive health information. Some states, such as Washington, Connecticut, Nevada, and New York, have already adopted laws to prevent the selling of personal health data without consent and tracking of individuals who visit reproductive or sexual health facilities.

In response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, more states are considering or passing laws aimed at protecting health-specific data privacy. Illinois, for example, adopted a new law last year that bans providing government license plate reading data to law enforcement in states with abortion bans. Bills addressing this issue have been introduced in several states, including Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, South Carolina, and Vermont. In Virginia, legislation has cleared both chambers of the General Assembly that would prohibit the issuance of search warrants, subpoenas, or court orders for electronic or digital menstrual health data, seen as a necessary precaution in a political climate where restrictions on abortion are being sought by Republican politicians.