5 Reasons Not To Trust Women’s Health Apps

There are 3 steps to optimise your body:brain health at every age:

1. Notice your body:mind symptoms daily, weekly, monthly
2. Track them to identify changes, cycles, themes & potential health issues
3. Find highly-targeted solutions that work for you (that align with your health & wellbeing values)

Tracking your symptoms in a women’s health app seems like a no-brainer.

I talk about symptom tracking A LOT in The BODY:BRAIN RESET — it’s the #1 way to get to know your body, what it’s doing, & why — so you can nip issues in the bud before they start.

So what’s better than effortlessly logging your data in a purpose-built app, then having the app store it, analyse it, generate personalised recommendations, and track your results real-time as you implement?!

It’s like magic 🪄

There’s a smörgasbørd of apps for almost every women’s health focus:

• menstrual health
• pregnancy apps for expectant mothers
• menopause apps for women’s health
• mental health apps for emotional well-being
• fitness apps for physical health
• sleep tracking apps for monitoring sleep patterns

But have you ever wondered:

• How PRIVATE + SECURE your data is? (and the implications of that)
• Who OWNS your health data (hint: it’s not you!)
• Who your data is SOLD to? (without our consent?)

Usefulness and convenience aside, there’s ONE critical issue that affects many popular women’s health apps – lack of privacy protections.

1. Lack of Privacy Protections

Many popular women’s health apps have poor data privacy and security standards, with issues like lack of privacy policies, lack of user consent, and data sharing with third parties.

In 2022 Period Tracker’s (by PG Apps) privacy policy admitted to sharing users’ device IDs with advertising networks 🤯

2. Sensitive Data Vulnerability

The intimate health data collected by these apps, such as information about pregnancies, abortions, and sexual activity, could be vulnerable to misuse by third parties like law enforcement, employers, or insurance companies.

If you use Apple’s Health app, be aware they can turn over data to authorities unless you have multi-factor authentication turned on for your Apple ID.

3. Potential for Data Subpoenas

After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there are concerns that data from period-tracking and other women’s health apps could be subpoenaed by authorities in states with abortion bans.

Period tracker Stardust’s privacy policy indicate they may freely hand over data  to authorities on request.

4. Lack of Transparency

Many Femtech apps don’t clearly disclose their data sharing and privacy practices, leaving users unaware of how their sensitive information is being used.

Even after deleting your data, it’s often retained by apps for 30 days (Period & pregnancy tracker Clue) to 2 years (Period Tracker by PG apps).

5. Insufficient Regulation

Stronger regulations and oversight appear to be needed to protect the privacy of women using these types of health tracking apps.

The FTC in the USA is clamping down: In May 2023 the FTC barred ovulation tracking app Premom from sharing user data for advertising.

What to do instead #1

Research apps that allow you to store your health data directly to you phone (versus the cloud) — this means you’re in complete control of your data.

• Period tracker Euki app is privacy first, with no 3rd party tracking
• Period & fertility tracker drip. enables you to store all your data on your device.
• Ovulation & period tracker Flo Health has ‘anonymous mode’ feature for ultimate privacy (it’s open source which means other apps could adopt this mode – fingers crossed 🤞🏽)

What to do instead #2:

Use the Health app on your iPhone:

• The Health app built into iPhones allows you to track your period and other health data, with encryption and privacy protections if you have multi-factor authentication and a passcode enabled.
• Check your Apple device sharing settings to revoke existing access to your data.
• N.B. As mentioned above, Apple can turn over data to authorities unless you have multi-factor authentication turned on for your Apple ID.

What to do instead #3:

• Track dates discreetly on your digital calendar. Develop your own code use emojis & symbols with meaning just for you, or…
• Keep a paper journal or calendar to track your cycle, the ultimate private option that doesn’t involve storing data on a device connected to the internet.

 

The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis, and trade of data – the data economy. Much of that data is personal data – data about you. The trading of personal data as a business model is increasingly being exported to all institutions in society – the surveillance society, or surveillance capitalism.

— Privacy is Power, Carissa Veliz