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Menstrual period tracker4/28/2023 Glow was dinged for “serious privacy and basic security failures.” Stardust shared user phone numbers with a third party, and its “end-to-end encryption” claims have been walked back. Flo was once caught sending data to various third parties including Facebook and Google, despite privacy policies indicating that it wouldn’t. That said, period tracker or fertility apps have a bad reputation when it comes to privacy, and they deserve it. The data from a period tracker app will only tell them so much, and it will only tell them the information you’ve given it. There are countless and more effective ways that interested parties can track your pregnancy status (expectant parents buy a lot of things, so knowing when someone gets pregnant to target them with ads can be lucrative) and law enforcement can do even more if they’re investigating you for getting an abortion in a state where it’s illegal (more on that later). The current anxiety about period apps is understandable, given the purpose that they serve. The longer answer is that when it comes to online privacy and health privacy, deleting a period tracker app is like taking a teaspoon of water out of the ocean. If you want to keep your reproductive health and menstrual data private - especially if you’re worried about that data being part of a criminal investigation - don’t put it in an app. This seems to be the biggest question people have about online privacy with regard to the Roe reversal. We’ve answered some of those questions here, from how scared you should be of period apps to what you can do to keep your private life private … as much as that’s possible, anyway. If you’ve never cared all that much about how and why you’re constantly being surveilled online before, you probably have a lot of questions about how all of this works now - especially when it comes to reproductive health data and what can be used against you. And the period tracker app Flo is introducing an “ anonymous mode” that is supposed to let users delete any identifiable information from their profiles. Google, for example, recently announced that it will automatically delete location data if people visit medical facilities, including abortion clinics (it still, of course, collects that data). Wade and subsequent criminalizing of abortion in several states, as the larger public realizes that the data those services collect could be used to prosecute abortion seekers. Tech companies are scrambling to adjust their data privacy practices in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v.
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