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The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

bbc.com

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Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#31

Post by soumyadeb »

benoau wrote: post #28

This is the second time [1] that analytics in period apps have been problematic, and also follows the recent hack of MixPanel [2] exposing OpenAI usage data. Seems like 3rd-party analytics are becoming a new frontier for security issues. [1] https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-09-03/met... [2] https://openai.com/index/mixpanel-incident/

That one was a security incident—data that had been legitimately collected by an analytics provider was exposed due to a breach.

This one is about privacy — what data an app chooses to collect and which third parties it intentionally sends that data to. The concern isn't that someone hacked those companies. The distinction is important for us.

Disclaimer: RudderStack founder.

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#32

Post by quadrifoliate »

I'm male, and clearly don't know enough about this--are there any benefits for the user that a period tracking app can provide by reaching out to the cloud? I guess backing up your data is an obvious one.

I thought entering the information is like 90% of the tracking, everything else is mostly calculation/averaging and none of it needs to live on a server. The Euki app seems like my idea of what it would always be.

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#34

Post by m463 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #14

Whenever this issue comes up I feel the need to relay a story about a meeting with a databroker in 1998 who was tracking menstrual cycles using purchasing records of a wide variety of consumer goods. They will track you to optimize their manipulative, targeted advertising whether you have an invasive app or not.

I wonder about not only baby or feminine supplies, but also snack coupons and dating apps

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#35

Post by dijksterhuis »

soumyadeb wrote: post #8

RudderStack founder here. Although the article doesn't accuse us of doing anything improper, we weren't contacted for comment, so I'd like to clarify our role. We are customer data infrastructure, not a data broker. We do not buy, sell or monetize the customer data that passes through our systems. Our role is analogous to infrastructure: customers choose what data to send, and RudderStack routes that data to the dest…

fyi you can report an editorial issue via email https://www.bbc.com/news/55077304

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#36

Post by [deleted] »

fragmede wrote: post #29

Period trackers are the perfect usecase for homomorphic encryption, where the system can operate on the data without knowing what the data says. It's slow and has a lot of overhead, but it's an active area of research. That way, the platform doesn't know what you're telling it. You have to trust the platform to have implemented it properly, and it's rather nerdy a detail, so it's no surprise there isn't one yet.

[deleted]

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#37

Post by soumyadeb »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #35
soumyadeb wrote: post #8

RudderStack founder here. Although the article doesn't accuse us of doing anything improper, we weren't contacted for comment, so I'd like to clarify our role. We are customer data infrastructure, not a data broker. We do not buy, sell or monetize the customer data that passes through our systems. Our role is analogous to infrastructure: customers choose what data to send, and RudderStack routes that data to the dest…

fyi you can report an editorial issue via email https://www.bbc.com/news/55077304

Even this page is behind a paywall :)

Managed to copy the email though. Thanks for the pointer

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#38

Post by soumyadeb »

inigyou wrote: post #15
soumyadeb wrote: post #8

RudderStack founder here. Although the article doesn't accuse us of doing anything improper, we weren't contacted for comment, so I'd like to clarify our role. We are customer data infrastructure, not a data broker. We do not buy, sell or monetize the customer data that passes through our systems. Our role is analogous to infrastructure: customers choose what data to send, and RudderStack routes that data to the dest…

Are analytics tools, data warehouses, and marketing platforms the only types of destinations you support? Because if that's the case then your system appears to only be useful for privacy invasions.

And others - customer support, feature flags, personalization, data quality, machine learning, internal BI, operational databases, security systems etc.

Ultimately, RudderStack is infrastructure that moves first-party data between systems more like message queues.

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#39

Post by tredre3 »

elephant81 wrote: post #33

What is the privacy concern vs a weight loss tracker?

Nobody cares that you're fat. But apparently (some) Americans care if your tracker shows that you've missed your period for one or two months before resuming as normal (indicating a possible abortion).

Re: The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker

#40

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

m463 wrote: post #34
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #14

Whenever this issue comes up I feel the need to relay a story about a meeting with a databroker in 1998 who was tracking menstrual cycles using purchasing records of a wide variety of consumer goods. They will track you to optimize their manipulative, targeted advertising whether you have an invasive app or not.

I wonder about not only baby or feminine supplies, but also snack coupons and dating apps

Any behavioral pattern with a 28 day correlation will pop out. Once you get a rough estimate, you can aggregate subjects with dates shifted into alignment to find more subtle correlations.
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