It’s estimated that tens of millions of individuals within the U.S. use period-tracking apps to plan forward, observe when they’re ovulating, and monitor different well being results. The apps can assist sign when a interval is late.
After Politico revealed on May 2 a draft opinion from the Supreme Court indicating that Roe v. Wade, the regulation that ensures the constitutional proper to an abortion, could be overturned, folks turned to social media. They had been expressing issues about the privateness of this data – particularly for individuals who dwell in states with strict limits on abortion – and the way it is likely to be used against them.
Many customers beneficial instantly deleting all private data from period-tracking apps.
“If you are using an online period tracker or tracking your cycles through your phone, get off it and delete your data,” activist and legal professional Elizabeth McLaughlin said in a viral tweet. “Now.”
Similarly, Eva Galperin, a cybersecurity skilled, said the data may “be used to prosecute you if you ever choose to have an abortion.”
That bought us questioning — are these issues warranted, and will individuals who use period-tracking apps delete the data or the app fully from their telephones? We requested the consultants.
Is your period-tracking app data shared?
Privacy insurance policies — particularly, whether or not the apps promote data to data brokers, use the data for promoting, share it for analysis, or preserve it solely throughout the app — range considerably amongst corporations.
“Does it encrypt? What’s its business model?” mentioned Lucia Savage, chief privateness and regulatory officer for Omada Health, a digital therapeutics firm. “If you can’t find terms of service or a privacy policy, don’t use that app.”
Period-tracking apps are sometimes not lined underneath the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, although if the corporate is billing for well being care providers, it may be. Still, HIPAA doesn’t stop the corporate from sharing de-identified data. If the app is free — and the corporate is monetizing the data — then “you are the product” and HIPAA doesn’t apply, Savage mentioned.
A 2019 examine revealed within the BMJ discovered that 79% of well being apps obtainable by way of the Google Play retailer usually shared consumer data and had been “far from transparent.”
When it involves advertising and marketing, a pregnant particular person’s data is especially of excessive worth and might be laborious to cover from the barrage of cookies and bots. Some period-tracking apps, which frequently ask for well being data in addition to menstrual cycle particulars, participate within the broader web data economic system, too.
“The data can be sold to third parties, such as big tech companies; or to insurance companies, where it could then be used to make targeting decisions, such as whether to sell you a life insurance policy, or how much your premium should be,” mentioned Giulia De Togni, a well being and synthetic intelligence researcher on the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Flo Health, headquartered in London, settled with the Federal Trade Commission final yr over allegations that the corporate, after guarantees of privateness, shared well being data of customers utilizing its fertility-tracking app with outdoors data analytics corporations, together with Facebook and Google.
In 2019, Ovia Health drew criticism for sharing data — although de-identified and aggregated — with employers, who may buy the period- and pregnancy-tracking app as a well being profit for his or her staff. People utilizing the employer-sponsored model should presently decide in for this type of data-sharing.
Ovia’s roughly 10,000-word privateness coverage particulars how the corporate could share or promote de-identified well being data and makes use of monitoring applied sciences for ads and analytics on its free, direct-to-consumer model.
For European residents, corporations should adjust to the stricter General Data Protection Regulation, which supplies possession of data to the buyer and requires consent earlier than gathering and processing private data. Consumers even have the correct to have their on-line data erased.
Companies have the choice of extending these rights to folks dwelling within the U.S. by way of their privateness insurance policies and phrases of providers. If they achieve this, the FTC can then maintain the businesses accountable for these commitments, mentioned Deven McGraw, Invitae’s head of data stewardship and the previous deputy director for well being data privateness on the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.
The period-tracking app Cycles, which is owned by Swedish firm Perigee, falls into this class. The firm guarantees its customers that it doesn’t do any promoting or promoting of data to 3rd events. Instead, it makes cash solely by way of subscriptions, spokesperson Raneal Engineer mentioned.
Concerned clients have been reaching out to a different well being app, Clue, developed by an organization based mostly in Berlin. “We completely understand this anxiety, and we want to reassure you that your health data, particularly any data you track in Clue about pregnancies, pregnancy loss or abortion, is kept private and safe,” Clue co-CEO Carrie Walter mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Some states, reminiscent of California and Virginia, have state-level legal guidelines that give customers possession over their data and whether or not it’s bought to 3rd events.
Data brokers commerce in different kinds of data, reminiscent of location-tracking data for individuals who visited Planned Parenthood, which doubtlessly could possibly be bought by regulation enforcement or authorities officers. Earlier this month, SafeGraph halted promoting cellphone-tracking data mapping the actions of individuals visiting Planned Parenthood, how lengthy they stayed, and the place they went afterward, after Vice reported shopping for every week’s price of data for $160.
Also of concern is an organization’s degree of data safety, and the way inclined it’s to a breach. “Hacking is criminal, there’s no question about it,” Savage mentioned. “But once it’s hacked, information can be released.”
Could this data be used in a prison prosecution?
The brief reply is sure.
“It’s almost surreal that in some states using a period app could get you into trouble,” mentioned McGraw. “But if an abortion is a crime, it could be accessed in building a case against you.”
This depends upon the place you dwell, however there aren’t any federal protections against that taking place from a privateness standpoint, she added. Last yr, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which might prohibit data brokers from promoting private data to regulation enforcement or intelligence businesses with out courtroom oversight. But the laws has but to make it to a vote.
Wyden instructed KHN he was “absolutely” apprehensive about the possibility that individuals who search an abortion could possibly be incriminated by their cellphone data.
“It is really an ominous prospect of women having their personal data weaponized against them,” mentioned Wyden. “These big data outfits,” he mentioned, “gotta decide — are they going to protect the privacy of women who do business with them? Or are they basically going to sell out to the highest bidder?”
In the absence of a federal regulation, if regulation enforcement does get a court-ordered subpoena, it may be troublesome for an organization to withstand handing over data associated to a particular case.
“Given the breadth of surveillance laws in the U.S., if a company collects and keeps information, that information is susceptible to being compelled by law enforcement,” mentioned Amie Stepanovich, a privateness lawyer and vice chairman of U.S. coverage on the Future of Privacy Forum. “They don’t necessarily have the ability to legally keep that information from law enforcement once the proper process has been undertaken.”
Still, even in states with strict abortion limits on the books, a lot depends upon how these legal guidelines are structured. Last month, for example, a homicide cost against a Texas lady for a “self-induced abortion” was dismissed after the district legal professional discovered it didn’t violate state regulation, which criminalizes suppliers performing abortions, not the sufferers.
If Roe v. Wade is struck down, 14 states have so-called set off legal guidelines that may routinely go into impact and ban abortion outright or after set home windows of time — for example, six weeks or 15 weeks, in keeping with a KFF evaluation.
“It’s really complicated under the hood, but I don’t think people should blindly assume their data is safe from legal process,” Savage mentioned. It can rely upon the corporate’s strategy to subpoenas, she added. Some will combat them whereas others won’t.
Take Apple, for instance, which repeatedly resisted unlocking iPhones for regulation enforcement in high-profile circumstances just like the 2015 San Bernardino capturing. Data in Apple’s well being app, which incorporates its interval tracker, is “encrypted and inaccessible by default,” in keeping with the corporate’s privateness coverage. All the well being data within the app is stored on an individual’s cellphone, not saved on servers. But on the similar time, Savage mentioned, people who find themselves in low-income communities do not all the time have an iPhone as a result of it’s an costly piece of apparatus.
Ovia’s privateness coverage says the corporate could give data to regulation enforcement if required by regulation or subpoena. The firm, nevertheless, mentioned in a press release that it has “never provided Ovia user data to any government, nor have we ever received any government requests for access to Ovia user data.” There can also be an choice in Ovia’s account settings to delete account data “entirely and permanently.”
Despite safeguards in place underneath the GDRP, interval trackers based mostly in Europe can nonetheless be subpoenaed as effectively, mentioned Lee Tien, a senior employees legal professional on the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“Even [European Union] companies are subject to the U.S. legal process, though it would take longer,” mentioned Tien. “The U.S. has mutual legal treaties with other countries, including E.U. countries, and law enforcement knows how to exchange information.”
Has this type of data been used by public officers or regulation enforcement earlier than?
Officials holding anti-abortion views have leveraged period-tracking data up to now. In 2019, former Missouri state well being director Dr. Randall Williams obtained a spreadsheet monitoring the menstrual intervals of ladies who visited Planned Parenthood in an effort to determine sufferers who had skilled an abortion that did not terminate the being pregnant.
During the Trump administration, former refugee resettlement chief and anti-abortion activist Scott Lloyd admitted to maintaining observe of the menstrual cycles of adlescent migrants in an effort to cease them from getting abortions.
“We are now thinking of period trackers the way we’ve been thinking of facial recognition software for years,” Savage mentioned.
Should you delete your period-tracking app?
Experts mentioned it’s unlikely {that a} period-tracking app could be the only real piece of proof used if somebody had been constructing a case against you for searching for an abortion.
“Frankly, I think if law enforcement or a civil investigator were trying to figure out who is having an abortion, there are probably several other venues that are more realistic or more immediately useful,” mentioned Stepanovich. “They would likely get a dump of information for the relevant data,” she continued, “such as trying to get the location information of everyone that got dropped off close to an abortion center, which is a much smaller set of data, or getting people who called abortion hotlines at certain times.”
Stepanovich added that so long as somebody is utilizing a smartphone with any kind of app on it there’s a threat that data could possibly be obtained and used as a part of a prison or civil prosecution. Bottom line: The solely technique to keep away from threat altogether is to not use a smartphone.
But McGraw took a extra cautious strategy: “If I lived in a state where I thought that data might end up in the hands of law enforcement, I wouldn’t track [my period] at all.”
Ultimately, individuals who use period-tracking apps ought to concentrate on the danger of utilizing the expertise whereas contemplating the profit it brings to their life.
“You have to think about what you need in terms of period tracking,” mentioned Tien. “You have to weigh and ask yourself, ‘How much does this convenience really matter to me?’”