Virginia Republicans voted this week to shelve a bill that would have barred authorities from using a search warrant to seize menstrual data stored on a computer or other electronic device.
defenders of the bill They say the result could make Virginians’ private menstrual data susceptible to surveillance, and could put people in the state at risk of prosecution if they seek or obtain abortions in the post-Roe v. era. Wade.
Although pass the Senate in a 31-9 bipartisan vote earlier this monththe bill was defeated 5-3 in a House subcommittee after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration voiced opposition.
Assistant Secretary for Public Safety and Homeland Security Maggie Cleary told the Justice Courts subcommittee tasked with reviewing the bill on Monday that the administration believes «any health information or any app information» should continue to be available. through a search warrant, adding that the bill appeared to raise the first state limit on what information could be subject to a search warrant, according to WWBT of Richmond, an NBC affiliate.
The lawmaker who introduced the bill, Democratic state Sen. Barbara Favola, responded that “there is very little information that is as personal and private as your menstrual data,” WWBT reported.
However, the Republicans on the subcommittee voted to “introduce” or shelve the bill, and all three Democrats voted against it. The motion would require the committee to vote to reconsider the bill before taking it up again this session; it could also come up again at the next session.
Activists fear surveillance and criminalization
Supporters of the bill, including the White House, condemned the vote.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. provided to the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Friday that the Youngkin administration’s stance on the bill «attacks the principles of liberty and the fundamental right of woman to privacy in the United States of America.»
“An overwhelming majority of Americans support these most basic measures and don’t want law enforcement to use their sensitive health data,” Jean-Pierre said. «The president supports this majority and continues to believe that politicians should allow women to make their own health care decisions.»
REPRO Rising Virginia, an abortion rights nonprofit, tweeted: «There is no reason to need access to people’s personal menstrual data other than to police and criminalize them for pregnancy outcomes.»
Virginia Democratic Party spokesman Liam Watson called the Youngkin administration’s opposition to the bill «a dangerous step.»
«It is uniquely disturbing to see Governor Youngkin oppose a bill that would protect women from having their private health data used as weapons against them in a court of law,» Watson said. in a sentence.
In a statement provided to NBC News, Youngkin’s spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said: “Since this in-state data collection is already legal in all 50 states, Democrats are deliberately distorting the bill. The damaging bill would have limited search warrant capabilities for the first time in Virginia.»
The Youngkin administration’s opposition to the bill comes after Virginia Senate Democrats defeated several bills seeking to restrict abortion access, including a proposal to ban abortion for 15 weeks backed by Youngkin, of who is rumored to be considering a run for president. (Currently, abortion is legal in Virginia until the third trimester, at which time an abortion can only be secured if multiple doctors determine that the patient’s physical or mental health is at risk.)
Favola he told CBS affiliate WUSA from Washington, D.C. who was inspired to write the search warrant bill after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, adding that she «felt she needed to take steps to ensure that information that women may be using cannot be used against them or to criminalize their behaviour.»
Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares has said he opposes prosecuting people who seek or obtain abortions, the Associated Press reported.
The defeat of the search warrant bill also came just days after Florida officials ruled that schools would no longer ask student athletes to share their menstrual histories to play high school sports, a proposal that spawned controversy after the Palm Beach County school district announced student-athletes could share that information in a digital form, which could be subject to subpoenas.
Vulnerabilities of menstrual tracking applications
About 30% of women report that they track their fertility or menstrual cycles on the internet or in phone apps at least occasionally. according to a 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation report.
Last July, the White House warned that people should be «very careful» when tracking periods on apps in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Reuters reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services also issued guidance last year about how people can increase the privacy of the health information they store on their phones, including turning off location sharing and activity tracking in apps.
That guidance also notes that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rules, which protect the privacy of health information managed by certain entities, including health care providers, generally do not protect health information stored on personal phones or tablets. .
Marielle Gross, an academic who has studied the ethics of menstrual tracking apps, said the defeat of the Virginia bill underscores the extent to which personal health information stored in such apps could make users vulnerable, particularly to light of increasing restrictions on abortion.
She likened the apps to a «snake oil salesman parading as healthcare.»
«The business model is about exploitation, and without any regulatory oversight» like the kind doctors are subjected to, said Gross, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioethics and Health Law. University of Pittsburgh.
Period tracker apps have a history of being criticized for the way they use the data they store. In 2021, the The Federal Trade Commission announced who filed a complaint against Flo, a popular period and pregnancy tracking app, alleging that it shared millions of users’ data with third-party companies, including Google and Facebook, even while promising users that their data would remain private.
Six months later, the FTC announced that it had arranged with Flo and that the app would be required to notify affected users that their information had been shared and instruct third parties to destroy that data, among other stipulations.