In a significant victory for the privacy of people seeking abortion in the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission has issued a groundbreaking ban on the sale of individuals' medical location data. The FTC settlement announced on Tuesday is the first of its kind and concludes the agency’s investigation into the smartphone surveillance company Outlogic (formerly X-Mode Social), which bills itself as the “second largest U.S. data company” and tracks people through more than 100 smartphone apps. Outlogic is now prohibited from selling or sharing any person’s private location data that could be used to track someone to a health care facility, domestic abuse shelter or place of worship.
The FTC accepted the consent agreement on a 3-0 vote. In a joint statement, FTC chair Lina Khan pointed at the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that constitutional protections against unchecked government surveillance extend to geolocation tracking “even when the data is originally collected by private companies.”
