Period-Tracking Apps Do Not Keep Your Health Data Private

By Emma Cornelius on March 4, 2022 | Tagged with , ,

Period-Tracking Apps Do Not Keep Your Health Data Private

By Emma Cornelius

Your period-tracking app knows all about you, but it is not protecting your privacy. There is no doubt these apps can be useful. Tracking your period, emotions, ovulation, pain, and sexual activity might help you get to know yourself and understand what is going on in your body [1]. Complete with period reminders, snappy graphs of your body’s trends, and medication reminders, these apps are becoming more popular [2]. The Femtech industry, which encompasses technology focused on women’s health, is becoming more valuable (it is projected to be worth $50 billion by 2025) [3]. With this growth, it is important to analyze your relationship to these apps, and to understand what information you are giving and who you are giving it to.

According to Privacy International [4], period-related data is useful to advertisers because:

  • A pregnant customer’s data is worth $1.50USD, compared to $0.10USD for a non-pregnant person [4];
  • With access to updates on a person’s mood, advertisers can take advantage of their vulnerable state to send them targeted ads [4].

Period-Tracking Apps Are Not Private

In 2020, Glow Inc. was fined $250,000 after it was found that anybody with a user’s email address could access the data they logged [7]. Furthermore, in 2021, Flo, an app with more than 100 million users [5], settled with the US Federal Trade Commission over allegations it repeatedly shared users’ health information with third party advertisers, despite promises it would not do so [6]. These problems are not unique to period trackers. In 2018, Grindr was found to have shared users’ information, including HIV status, with two other companies [8]. Users felt that their safe space was “just another tech giant” that sold them out [9]. With technologies evolving to allow smart toilets to track our bathroom habits [10], we have to ask at what point tracking our bodies becomes surveillance.

It’s Just Period Data. Or Is It?

It is possible your period information does not feel all that personal, but here is why it might matter more than you think. In 2019, period-tracking app Ovia was found to have been marketing user’s data to employers and health insurers, allowing them to see how many workers were using the app’s fertility functions as well as when new parents planned to return to work [11]. By enabling this corporate surveillance, the period-tracking app left the door open for workplace discrimination and changes in health coverage [11]. And with one in five women between ages 18 and 49 using health-tracking apps [12], you become part of an “invisible chain reaction of data-sharing” between companies you may never know about [13].

These apps are marketed as empowering tools. But they do not always have your best interests in mind. In 2018, novelist Olivia Sudjic wrote about the FDA-approved birth control app Natural Cycles, detailing her and other women’s experiences with unwanted pregnancies after relying on the app for contraception [14]. Natural Cycles’ response was to claim that the app was aimed at a specific, ideal user who was in a relationship and thinking of conceiving in the near future, but its influencer-led social media marketing did not emphasize this [14]. Many of the app user’s lifestyles did not align with the level of consistency and effort needed to effectively use the app. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority says it is powerless to stop companies like Natural Cycles from using influencers whose lifestyles do not match with that of the ideal user, or who are outside the app’s recommended age bracket [15]. It is important to remember that what companies such as these advertise is not always reality.

Conclusion and Recommendations

After all this backlash, some apps are making changes. While Flo has admitted no wrongdoing, its privacy policy is highlighted on its website [16], and you are now prompted to agree to their privacy policy upon download, before entering any data. But whether these are genuine changes for the better or simply performative tactics is still up for debate. In a now deleted blog post from March 2020, Berlin-based app Clue announced they would stop sending usage data to Facebook. The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection is reportedly “looking closely” at whether app developers are handling sensitive health information responsibly [17]. But the question remains: do you trust your period-tracker to keep its promises?

These apps do have potential for good. Taken together, the data we’re inputting could form the basis of wide-scale medical research on menstrual health. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide if you want to use these apps. Read the privacy policies, and analyze your relationship to the app. Is it adding value to your life? 

Points to Consider

  • Have you read your period tracker’s privacy policy? How would you feel if you found out they were sharing your information?
  • Tracking your moods. functions, your body – that is work you are putting in. What are you getting in return? Is it worth it?
  • Ida Tin, founder of Clue, argues that “the benefits of living in an age of data outweigh the risks” [19]. Do you agree?

To learn about privacy resources available from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, read Samantha Summers’ post. If you’re interested in learning about targeted advertising, check out contributor Laura Moberg’s post on targeted ads and ad-blocking technologies.

References

  1. Levy, J., & Romo-Avilés, N. (2019). “A good little tool to get to know yourself a bit better”: A qualitative study on users’ experiences of app-supported menstrual tracking in Europe. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 1213. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7549-8
  2. Karasneh, R. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K. H., Muflih, S. M., & Hawamdeh, S. S. (2020). Smartphone Applications for Period Tracking: Rating and Behavioral Change among Women Users. Obstetrics and Gynecology International, 2020, e2192387. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/2192387
  3. Rosato, D. (2020, January 28). What Your Period Tracker App Knows About You. Consumer Reports. https://www.consumerreports.org/health-privacy/what-your-period-tracker-app-knows-about-you/
  4. No Body’s Business But Mine: How Menstruation Apps Are Sharing Your Data. (2019, September 9). Privacy International. http://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3196/no-bodys-business-mine-how-menstruations-apps-are-sharing-your-data
  5. Schiffer, Z. (2021, January 13). Period tracking app settles charges it lied to users about privacy. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/13/22229303/flo-period-tracking-app-privacy-health-data-facebook-google
  6. Federal Trade Commission. (2021b). United States of America Before the Federal Trade Commission in the Matter of Flo Health Inc. Federal Trade Commission. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/192-3133/flo-health-inc
  7. McShane, J. (2021, January 15). More than 100 million women use Flo, a period-tracking app. Here’s why some are deleting it. Https://Www.Thelily.Com. https://www.thelily.com/more-than-100-million-women-use-flo-a-period-tracking-app-heres-why-some-are-deleting-it/
  8. Ghorayshi, A., & Ray, S. (2018, April 2). Grindr Is Sharing The HIV Status Of Its Users With Other Companies. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghorayshi/grindr-hiv-status-privacy
  9. Moylan, B. (2018, April 4). Grindr was a safe space for gay men. Its HIV status leak betrayed us. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/04/grindr-gay-men-hiv-status-leak-app
  10. Saner, E. (2021, September 29). ‘Alexa, analyse my bowel movement’: Will every home soon have a smart toilet? The Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/interiors/alexa-analyse-my-bowel-movement-will-every-home-soon-have-a-smart-toilet-1.4681838
  11. Fox, S., & Spektor, F. (2021). Hormonal Advantage: Retracing Exploitative Histories of Workplace Menstrual Tracking. Catalyst : Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 7(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v7i1.34506
  12. Gupta, A. H., & Singer, N. (2021, January 28). Your App Knows You Got Your Period. Guess Who It Told? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/us/period-apps-health-technology-women-privacy.html
  13. Germain, T. (2020, January 14). Popular Apps Share Intimate Details About You With Dozens of Companies. Consumer Reports. https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/popular-apps-share-intimate-details-about-you-a1849218122/
  14.  Sudjic, O. (2018, July 21). ‘I felt colossally naive’: The backlash against the birth control app. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/21/colossally-naive-backlash-birth-control-app
  15. Hough, A., & Bryce, M. (2019). Exaggerating contraceptive efficacy: The implications of the Advertising Standards Authority action against Natural Cycles. BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, 45(1), 71–72. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2018-200209
  16. Privacy Portal. (n.d.). Flo Health. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from https://flo.health/privacy-portal
  17. Federal Trade Commission. (2021a, January 13). Developer of Popular Women’s Fertility-Tracking App Settles FTC Allegations that It Misled Consumers About the Disclosure of their Health Data. Federal Trade Commission. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/01/developer-popular-womens-fertility-tracking-app-settles-ftc
  18. Tin, I. (2019, September 19). What happens to your period tracking data. About Clue. https://helloclue.com/articles/about-clue/the-journey-of-a-single-data-point

Written By: Emma Cornelius, UBC, School of Information

Edited By: Brittanny Dzioba and Rie Namba 

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