Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

cam.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 438 posts

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#131

Post by nlitened »

em-bee wrote: post #101
nlitened wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

try searching again. here is one example: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abortion-laws-punishin... it was overturned, but at least one judge believed that imprisonment was warranted and issued his verdict accordingly. and many politicians believe that too and push for laws to that effect.

Purvi Patel gave birth to a 5.5—6 months baby, sealed it in a plastic bag, and threw it in a trash container! I guess we could agree to disagree whether at least some jail time was warranted in this case.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#133

Post by justinrubek »

dylan604 wrote: post #126
iamacyborg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe they mean storing it on a company owned device, just that Apple and Google are US companies

maybe, but it reads like IT managed devices owned by your employer. i've never seen it referenced as "managed" when referring to the fact that iOS/Android are US companies. seems a strained way to phrase it

An iOS device is a device managed by Apple, though. The user doesn't manage it themselves. I didn't get a hint of employer owned devices from that happen.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#134

Post by tveyben »

NoTranslationL wrote: post #23

If anyone is interested in a privacy focused tracking app that stores all your data locally, I make an app called Reflect [0] whose sole purpose is this, plus on-device analysis. We’re working on a menstrual tracking feature right now and it’s pretty far along. We’ve just released an anomaly detection feature as well. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...

Thanx - sounds like what I need ;-)

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#136

Post by rtkwe »

mschuster91 wrote: post #79
testing22321 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always worth pointing out there are many billions of people who live completely free of this fear of reprisals from the state/country they live in

Unfortunately, the right to abortion is under fire worldwide. I'm not just talking about the usual suspects like Russia or Islamist theocracies, but also here in Europe... Hungary and Poland being the first suspects, but Italy is also planning to restrict it [1]. And in Germany, the last government at least banned "pro-life" haunting events, but there are wide swaths especially in Bavaria where there is no doctor or…

Yeah the conservative rubber banding and backsliding isn't isolated to just the US right now we're just ahead of the rest of the pack partially because of our government and election structure being more beholden to the GOP because of the senate and gerrymandering in the states after the 2010 election and subsequent redistricting.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#137

Post by em-bee »

nlitened wrote: post #113
scblock wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you haven't tried looking. Women are being arrested and even convicted for having miscarriages, including in the US. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59214544 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-arrest-miscarri... https://churchandstate.org.uk/2015/01/conservative-dream-com... https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/health/miscarriage-criminal-c... https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/02/law-pregna…

Every single of the six links you provided are about miscarriages and not abortions. Either I don’t understand something medical (not a doctor), or you’re mixing things to derail a conversation (dishonestly or unintentionally). Whether those miscarriages were natural or a result of human malice, is an absolutely separate discussion. How does all that prove an original point that an abortion can get a woman to prison?

if an unintentional miscarriage can get you punished, then an abortion most certainly can too, since an abortion is an intentional miscarriage.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#139

Post by kevinventullo »

NoTranslationL wrote: post #110
leereeves wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a good idea with one obvious challenge: how can you prove that data will remain private forever?

That’s a tough guarantee, ultimately you’re placing trust in the device’s security once you limit your attack surface to just local data. So that’s why we’re working on encryption with key custody. Any feature like cloud backups are explicitly opt-out by default so no one is putting their data onto someone else’s servers without knowing what they’re getting into.

Just to be clear, you’re saying cloud backups are off by default, and the user must explicitly enable them?

If so, just FYI I believe that pattern is usually referred to as “opt-in.” As in, the feature is off by default, and the user must opt in to using it.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#140

Post by msdrider »

fhdkweig wrote: post #86
JohnBooty wrote: post #47

For those wondering why this is a safety issue, in many American states abortion or "fetal harm" is considered murder. You can be imprisoned, theoretically for life. This is of course a rapidly evolving area of law since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Having one's menstrual data available for subpoena is therefore quite a literal safety risk. "At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss" https:…

As a clarification for the "I didn't do anything wrong, I have nothing to hide" crowd, most of the time when someone is pregnant and then suddenly not pregnant, the cause is a miscarriage. And most people would go see a doctor if there is a lot of pain or bleeding. An overzealous prosecutor (usually running for election) is going to make the claim that you went to a doctor and now you aren't pregnant, you must have m…

Surely the burden of proof is on the prosecution?

I don't have a problem with this. If a child - even an unborn one - dies in mysterious circumstances, I would prefer the inconvenience of a fruitless investigation over the prospect of living in a society where we don't even care enough to ever be suspicious.

Post reply on HN