Millions of women around the world use period-tracking apps to better understand their bodies and track their ovulation cycles, but data privacy concerns around them have deepened since the restriction of abortion access in the United States.
Period-tracking apps have become hugely popular in recent years for users keen to take advantage of the health benefits they can offer. The popular app Flo has more than 50 million downloads on the Google Play store, while competitor Clue has more than 10 million. And Apple has had its own period-tracking app available for iPhone and Apple Watch customers since 2019. But should users now be deleting these apps?
Data privacy concerns
In recent years period-tracking apps have earned themselves a bad reputation when it comes to data protection. In January 2021, Flo reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after it was accused of sharing personal user data with third parties, including Facebook and Google.
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According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal in 2019, the tracking app informed Facebook “when a user was having her period or informed the app of an intention to get pregnant”, even if the user had no connection to the social media site.
A similar settlement was reached with period-tracking app Glow in 2020, which was fined $250,000 for “serious privacy and basic security failures”. TechCrunch also found that app Stardust shared user phone numbers with a third party, and was also forced to walk back its “end-to-end encryption” claims.
Flo did not admit to any wrongdoing within the settlement and has insisted it does not share health data with any third party, but the settlement has nevertheless “created doubts surrounding the app’s privacy practices”, said Grazia.
After Roe vs Wade
Data privacy concerns have only intensified for many in the United States after the overturning of the landmark abortion-rights legislation Roe vs Wade, making abortion illegal in 23 states.
Business Insider said that with Roe vs Wade overturned, “it’s possible the companies behind period-tracking apps could be compelled to hand user data to law enforcement authorities in some states” who could then “subpoena the companies for data indicating a user had an abortion”.
Speaking to Insider, Eva Blum-Dumontet, who in 2020 published research on the privacy practices of period-tracking apps, said that although the risk of data being handed to law enforcement was low, users should be aware of the risk involved with using such apps. “It’s unlikely that those [pieces of] data will be shared, but not impossible,” she said.
Activists speaking to Women’s Health advised those actively seeking abortions in states where it is now illegal to uninstall any tracking apps from their phones, and to contact the app company to see if their health data can be deleted from the company servers. Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director of Fight for the Future, warned that “deleting the app generally isn’t enough”.
Data from health apps such as period trackers “has not been a major part of the strategy to prosecute people seeking abortions so far”, said The Verge, but users should be aware that “even the apps that say they don’t sell user data have language in their privacy policies saying that they would share data with law enforcement in response to subpoenas or warrants”. And experts have warned that this sort of data “could be used against people going forward”.
