The web information location dealer SafeGraph mentioned it has stopped selling information on visits to abortion clinics after a report from Vice news revealed how simply the information may very well be bought, elevating issues that “anti-abortion vigilantes” might use it to focus on suppliers and their purchasers.

Vice reported Tuesday that it bought per week’s price of location information for greater than 600 Deliberate Parenthood areas throughout the USA for simply over $160 from SafeGraph.

A few of these areas provide abortion providers, the outlet mentioned.

And the information confirmed the place teams of individuals visiting these amenities got here from, the length of their visits, and the place they traveled afterward, based on Motherboard’s article.

SafeGraph, whose buyers reportedly have included billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel and a former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, obtains and aggregates location information from apps put in on individuals’s cellphones.

The corporate says that the “Patterns” data of the kind purchased by Vice, which reveals how teams of individuals work together with a given location, is anonymized to guard the privateness of particular person guests.

However Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher, advised Vice: “it is bonkers harmful to have abortion clinics after which let somebody purchase the census tracks the place individuals are coming from to go to that abortion clinic.”

“That is the way you dox somebody touring throughout state strains for abortions — the way you dox clinics offering this service,” Edwards mentioned.

Vice’s article was printed a day after a Politico report on a leaked preliminary draft of a Supreme Court opinion, which signifies {that a} majority of justices have voted to overrun the half-century-old Roe v. Wade ruling that claims individuals have a constitutional proper to abortions.

If that finally ends up being the official choice of the Supreme Court docket this summer time, the ruling is predicted to rapidly result in the banning of abortion, or the extreme restriction of the process, in up to two dozen states.

That, in flip, is predicted to extend the variety of individuals touring from their dwelling states to acquire abortions at clinics in states the place the process nonetheless can be authorized, as has been the case since Texas adopted a restrictive new abortion regulation.

When requested concerning the Vice article by CNBC on Wednesday, a SafeGraph spokesman emailed a hyperlink to an internet submit titled, “Demystifying the SafeGraph Details.”

Within the submit, the corporate mentioned it “simply sells details,” and “we solely promote information about bodily locations (not people).”

“To our information, no one has ever used SafeGraph Patterns information for malicious functions,” the submit mentioned. “In truth, the Patterns dataset has principally been utilized by 15,000+ researchers and academics and local governments to combat COVID-19.”

“However there are all the time excessive hypothetical nook instances, and in some instances these are price actively stopping,” the submit famous.

“In gentle of potential federal adjustments in household planning entry, we’re eradicating Patterns information for areas labeled as NAICS code 621410 (‘Household Planning Facilities’) from our self-serve “store” and API to curtail any potential misuse of its information,” the submit mentioned.

SafeGraph mentioned that the removing of this information will have an effect on many tutorial researchers who need to research the subject, “like understanding the influence of laws on household planning visits.”

“We acknowledge that our choice to take down Patterns for household planning facilities might negatively influence this priceless analysis, however we expect that is the best choice given the present local weather,” the corporate mentioned.

SafeGraph mentioned it’ll nonetheless have information on the market concerning the areas and working hours of household planning facilities.

“Household Planning facilities like Deliberate Parenthood make their location information public as a result of they need to serve their constituents,” SafeGraph mentioned.

CNBC has requested remark from Deliberate Parenthood concerning the SafeGraph information.