Women face “real and frightening privacy and safety risks” when using period tracker apps, experts have warned.
Academics from the University of Cambridge said that personal information in the app can be collected and “sold at scale”.
A new report from experts at Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy said that this “poses risks and harms for users”.
Researchers said that menstrual data can provide insights into people’s health and their reproductive choices.
These apps can collect information on exercise, diet, medication, sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, they added.
This information can be a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, the authors of the new report said.
Many women who download the apps do so when they are trying to get pregnant, which the authors point out leads to a dramatic shift in shopping behaviour.
“Data on who is pregnant, and who wants to be, has therefore emerged as some of the most sought-after information in digital advertising,” they said.
The point out how period tracking apps have rapidly risen in popularity, with global downloads of the three most popular apps surpassing 250 million.
“Cycle tracking apps (CTA) are a lucrative business because they provide the companies behind the apps with access to extremely valuable and fine-grained user data,” the experts wrote in their new report.
“CTA data is not only commercially valuable and shared with an inextricable net if third parties (thereby making intimate user information exploitable for targeted advertising), but it also poses severe security risks for users.”
They point out that in the wrong hands, the data collected by the apps could result in health insurance “discrimination”; risks to job prospects or even domestic abuse.
The research team called for better governance of the “femtech” industry, including improved data security of these apps and for them to introduce “meaningful consent options”.
They also called for public health bodies to launch alternatives to commercial tracking apps.
“Menstrual cycle tracking apps are presented as empowering women and addressing the gender health gap,” said Dr Stefanie Felsberger, lead author of the report.
“Yet the business model behind their services rests on commercial use, selling user data and insights to third parties for profit.”
“There are real and frightening privacy and safety risks to women as a result of the commodification of the data collected by cycle tracking app companies.”
Professor Gina Neff, executive director of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre, added: “The use of cycle tracking apps is at an all-time high.
“Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data, but there is a different possible future.”
