https://www.learnbodyliteracy.com/menstrual-apps
Common Privacy Issues with Menstrual Apps
- Invasive advertising and spam sent by third-party companies due to data collected by menstrual-cycle trackers.
- Data not deleted even after an account is terminated.
- Some menstrual-cycle trackers share data with third parties without the users’ consent while others ask for consent but don’t specify which data will be shared.
- Sharing personal information with sponsors and partners
- Glitches vulnerable to hijacking
- Data shared with law enforcement resulting in possible criminalization
Menstrual Apps That May Invade your Privacy Include
Period Tracking Apps
Apps which main purpose is to track the calendar days that you bleed & thus the total length of each menstrual cycle. You are able to add other kinds of health data in your charts like energy & mood. These apps use an algorithm to average your past cycles to estimate your future cycles. Some of these apps will include the fertility markers of cervical fluid & basal body temperature.
Examples include Glow, Flo, Clue, Ovia, Bellabeat, Life, Period Tracker
Fertility Monitors, Contraceptive Apps, and Smart Thermometers
Apps which connect to a device which takes a measurement of some form of biodata and then makes predictions based on these inputs. The two most common devices are accompanying basal body thermometers, or hormonal monitors which can measure estrogen & luteinizing hormone in urine samples. The predictions with these devices are also algorithmic, and thus can also be wrong.
Examples include Natural Cycles, Tempdrop, Daysy Fertility Monitor, Clearblue Fertility Monitor
Fertility Awareness Charting Apps
These are apps which mirror the analog fertility awareness chart. Typically a line graph is used to mark basal body temperature, and a section for cervical fluid and cervical position observations can be seen on the same chart. These apps, in contrast, do not make predictions about the fertile window. The user must follow the rules of their given method of fertility awareness to learn when they are fertile and when ovulation occurs.
Examples include: Kindara, Read Your Body, Femometer
Pregnancy Trackers
Apps to be used to track your pregnancy. Some of these are the same apps as period tracking apps, with additional features for pregnancy.
Examples include Pregnancy+, The Bump, Ovia Pregnancy Tracker, Flo Pregnancy Mode
Encrypted Apps
No digital tracking is completely secure.
But the best chance at privacy relies on having control over your own data and through encryption.
Encryption is a way to scramble data so that only authorized parties can unscramble it. Sometimes this is done by the app itself or by the phone you are using it on.
These apps do not collect your data or use encryption or both:
