| Google and Apple did not return requests for comment Monday. Democrats also are hoping to capitalize on one of their few advantages on the issue: a newly minted 3-to-2 majority at the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces against privacy violations and could help crack down on sweeping collections of health data. In another letter led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), over a dozen Democrats called on the FTC to say what steps it's "taking to ensure data brokers are not collecting, buying, or selling sensitive location data that put people, particularly those seeking medical attention, at risk." Several of the missives, including the one to the FTC, voiced particular concern about the collection of location data, including on mobile phones, which lawmakers noted "has historically been used to identify individuals." The same concerns also have prompted fresh calls for Congress to pass a federal consumer privacy law, which has long eluded lawmakers on Capitol Hill. "Democrats must swiftly pass a strong national consumer data privacy standard that protects our personal information including pregnancy status and other health data," Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said in a statement earlier this month. "We can't afford to wait." Efforts to pass a federal privacy law and to expand the FTC's resources to police privacy abuses have largely sputtered, however, and so Democrats in Washington are instead looking for answers elsewhere when it comes to safeguarding women's data. But their public pressure campaign is likely to face strong political head winds if Roe v. Wade is overturned. With tech companies like Google and Apple likely to be flooded with data requests from officials in GOP states, they'll be forced to choose between complying with those legal requests and risk angering Democrats and likely some of their own employees or users, or decline and face legal and political repercussions from Republican leaders. To this point, tech companies have largely kept their cards close to the vest about how they might approach abortion-related data requests moving forward, but with lawmakers pressing for answers, they may have to show their hand sooner rather than later. | 
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