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How California Reproductive Health Workers Can Protect Information They Submit to the Government

EFF: “With the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs reversing long-standing rights to abortion access, workers and volunteers for reproductive health clinics must reevaluate the risks they face (also known as a threat model) and take steps to safeguard their personal information–including information they have submitted to the government.  In 2020, nearly 17% of abortions performed in the United States occurred in California, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, and that number is projected to grow substantially as California endeavors to become a safe haven for pregnant people coming from potentially dozens of states that restrict abortions. Consequentially, it is also reasonable to expect that anti-abortion activists will continue to use California’s public records laws to obtain and release personal information of health care workers at reproductive health clinics. Public records are among the most common sources of information that lead to doxxing and similar harassment of individuals. EFF has provided many guides to protecting one’s data in the online world. In this new guide, we’ll cover how health care workers in California can use AB 1622, a law passed in 2019 that allows them to request protections for the data they must submit to the government from being released under the California Public Records Act. We include a letter template that clinics can submit to government agencies requesting data protection for their employees…”

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