Period Tracking Apps - Is Your Data Really Safe?
Nearly a third of women in the United States have used, or will use a period-tracking app in their lifetime. There are over 1,000 different period tracking apps but the most popular of them all is Flo. Flo allows its users to record and track their period, create a personalised ovulation and pregnancy calendar, and gain access to a monthly personalised health report and assistant. All of this sounds like a dream come true - no more nasty surprises in the morning - Flo has your back. However, this fantasy will be swiftly crushed when you learn the truth behind your period tracking app and the grisly story about how they really use your data.
Mozilla, a software company, investigated twenty-five different reproductive health apps and wearable devices in 2022. Their findings were shocking - eighteen out of the twenty-five different apps and wearable devices received a ‘not included warning’ in regard to their privacy and security practices. These included: Flo, Glow, Ovia, Period Calendar Period Tracker, and My Calendar Period Tracker. The study found that the data is shared between third parties such as businesses, research institutions and others.
These apps collect tons of personal information from their users, and are even finding new inventive ways to deceive users into sharing information before they give consent. Sometimes privacy policies are hidden, making it harder for users to know how companies will collect, use, store and retain their data. Mozilla found this was happening in the Maya Period, Fertility, Ovulation and Pregnancy tracking app.
Scarily, many of these apps have no clear stand on whether they will share your data with law enforcement. Mozilla found a worrying trend when studying the apps. They found that the majority of the apps have very vague guidelines on when and how much of a user’s data could be shared with law enforcement. This is particularly concerning after the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade which has led to 12 American states banning abortion and at least 15 others just beginning the process. Experts have urged people within America who use period tracking apps to delete them immediately as the data that the apps collect has the potential to become incriminating should the user seek an abortion at some point in their lives.
Gina Neff, a professor of technology and society at the University of Oxford, tweeted, “Right now, and I mean this instant, delete every digital trace of any menstrual tracking.” Neff later added, “Americans lack fundamental privacy protections. Post-Roe makes that tragically clear. For many women, post-Roe privacy is more urgent. But privacy is even more important for all of us now ... Law enforcement agencies have already targeted Google searches for ‘abortion pills’, text messages, and DNA databases (23andMe! And Ancestry.com) in prosecuting women for abortions and miscarriages.”
If US law enforcement is already targeting Google searches, text messages and DNA databases what’s to stop them from looking at period tracking apps? We have already seen that our data isn’t truly safe with these corporations anyway, so what’s to say they won’t sell you and your data out to the highest bidder?
The personal information that is collected ranges from information such as; phone numbers, emails, residency postal addresses, gender, device IDs, advertising IDs, and IP addresses, to app activity data such as; cycle length, date of last menstrual period, sexual activity, pregnancy due date, doctors’ appointments, and pregnancy symptoms. Some apps also asked users to fill in work experience, education, hobbies, and interests. There are so many examples of this data being collected and used to target users with personalised adverts; to share with data brokers; and now insidiously, potentially used to identify and map the activities of people seeking an abortion.
So really, how safe is your data? Can we really trust these big corporations with all our personal data, or should we go back to tracking our periods the old-fashioned way? Some period tracking apps say they have changed their privacy policy, but can we really believe them when they have lied to us before?
I don’t mean to scare you off using period tracking apps entirely - at the end of the day, it is completely your choice. However, I think it is important to showcase how personal data is being used by these apps.
If you are looking for a period tracking app to use, I would recommend Euki. It is a sexual and reproductive health app designed with privacy in mind, it was created by Women Help Women, an international non-profit organisation which is dedicated to reproductive freedom, justice and access to safe abortion. Euki doesn’t collect any personal information about its users. Everything the user enters into the app about their sexual or reproductive health and history is stored locally on the user’s device. The user is always completely in control of their own data.
Or if you would prefer to do it the old-fashioned way the National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda have some beautiful and helpful period tracker templates that you can print off and fill in.
Period Tracker Templates:
https://blackrj.org/the-new-dangers-surrounding-period-tracking-apps/