The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) premier law enforcement agency monitors expecting parents’ online posts about their pregnancy and reproductive health issues, according to internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the online privacy activist group, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
The U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency that conducts criminal investigations and enforces U.S. immigration laws, is one of a handful of government agencies that use a software tracking tool called SocialNet.
SocialNet pulls citizens’ online data from a host of websites, including BabyCenter, a reference and pregnancy tracking site where new and expecting parents can post information about their health and pregnancy experiences.
Eva Galperin — cybersecurity director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in the digital world — said the revelation is “concerning.”
“When people post about their pregnancies to BabyCenter, they’re usually doing it without the expectation that ICE or the local police are checking up on the status of their pregnancy,” Galperin told The Defender.
“ICE could potentially be reading information about your reproductive health and about your pregnancy or your children,” she said, adding that this is particularly concerning due to the current political climate surrounding pregnancy and abortion.
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