Five Tips to Keep Your Digital Security Safe While Seeking Abortion Care
The national landscape of abortion access changes frequently, and every day, new ways for your information to be tracked online emerge. It’s important to keep yourself – and your personal information – safe and secure when accessing abortion care. Here’s some helpful tips.
1. Use a secure period tracker.
Tracking your menstrual cycle is important for many reasons – planning, health data, and tracking possible pregnancy. But not all period trackers are designed to keep your health data secure. Here are some period tracker apps you can use that securely store your data:
Or, you can always track the old-fashioned way: with a paper calendar.
2. When looking for care options, use a secure browser.
DuckDuckGo, Firefox Focus, and Tor are secure browsers that don’t store your data or encrypt your internet traffic. Using these browsers can protect your search history data from being weaponized against you.
3. Seek out trustworthy, quality sources when seeking abortion care options.
There is a lot of misinformation about abortion care on the internet. Make sure you get information from vetted sources. You can find abortion care in New England using Reproductive Equity Now’s Abortion Care Guide. You can find care nationally using INeedAnA.com. Find support paying for your abortion with the National Network of Abortion Funds (https://abortionfunds.org/). Talk to a nurse beforehand about your options using the Reprocare Hotline (833-226-7821 or https://reprocare.com/). Get help accessing medication abortion via telemedicine from the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (the MAP), AidAccess, or Plan C Pills.
4. Talk to people you trust.
Unfortunately, in situations where patients are approached by law enforcement due to their pregnancy outcomes, it’s not usually their Google search history that turns them in – it’s someone in their life who reports them. Talk about your options with trusted people in your life, or seek support from the Reprocare Hotline.
BONUS: Be the trusted person in your loved ones’ lives. Become an expert on accessing abortion care and make clear to your community that they can come to you for support.
5. Know your rights.
It’s important to know your rights and know the laws in your state regarding abortion care. In the event that you need medical care following an abortion or pregnancy loss, you do not have to disclose to a medical provider that you recently intentionally ended a pregnancy. A medical abortion and miscarriage are treated the same way. You can find legal support in Massachusetts and Connecticut using Repro Equity Now’s Abortion Legal Hotline (833-309-6301) or nationally using the Repro Legal Helpline (844-868-2812).
Other things to do to keep your data private:
Turn off your cellphone location data and revoke location data access from your apps
Use encrypted communications services like Proton Mail (email) and Signal (text and call) when coordinating care
Use a burner/prepaid cell phone as needed when traveling for care
Use a prepaid debit or credit card for payment of care
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