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

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

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

olalonde wrote: post #72
footy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps it has, but considering what American women in particular are risking if their menstrual data is leaked this doesn't seem like an example of said loss of meaning

What specific safety risks could an American woman face if her menstrual data were leaked?

Pregnancy (even without elective abortion!) has a variety of risks of criminal prosecution in the post-Dobbs world, and prosecutors in some states where this is the case have expressed desire to use menstrual data to identify targets for investigation.

There's also sometimes significant risks of nongovernmental (particularly family and intimate partner) violence associated with situations that can be inferred from that data, which is one reason people often conceal things which might be inferred from it from selected other people.

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

#82

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

XorNot wrote: post #71
Ylpertnodi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people living in the US of Freedom, wouldn't it be good think to 'keep putting in' cycles, despite pregnancy? Should anything untoward happen later, a quick flash o' the app and "Nope, Officer, no siree. Like clockwork, me...".

Duress modes are a frequently overlooked feature in general - e.g. I don't want to just block access to my location, I want to lie about my location entirely.

I also would like “give an incorrect location” as an option. Something like that would probably never be supported by Google or Apple officially, because unlike some other privacy features, it’s actively and overtly hostile to advertisers.

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

#85

Post by nlitened »

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:…

[flagged]

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

#86

Post by fhdkweig »

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 made an abortion. And now you have to hire lawyers to argue in court. And all in a easily 3rd-party mass-suppeonable database. That's why this is such a big problem.

https://thegeorgiasun.com/news/woman-arrested-after-miscarri...

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/02/law-pregnancy-...

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

#87

Post by xenator »

bmacho wrote: post #61
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?

Simple + open source + no access to network + no updates (idk about Android/iOS cross-app data sharing).

Still data can be uploaded to the cloud and will be available to cloud providers.

So there is more vectors to protect user data.

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

#88

Post by olalonde »

nemomarx wrote: post #75
olalonde wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific safety risks could an American woman face if her menstrual data were leaked?

If your period stops long enough to suggest a pregnancy, and then resumes without giving birth on record, that's enough evidence that you might have terminated the pregnancy. This can be correlated with travel records to find that you used a clinic out of state, which is a crime in some jurisdictions.

I find it hard to believe this would qualify as "enough evidence" in any court of law. A straightforward defense could be that you simply stopped tracking for unrelated reasons.

Also, are there really criminal penalties for receiving an abortion? From what I’ve read, the criminal penalties are reserved for those who perform or facilitate them.

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

#89

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

They don't need apps to do this. I sat in a meeting with a data broker in 1998 where one of their managers was chuffed that they could determine menstrual cycles by analyzing purchasing records. And it wasn't hygiene products. Various foods and other spending patterns pop out after a 28-day correlation over groups of women that are artificially "synced" into cohort groups.

This invasiveness will continue so long as there are no consumer data protection laws.

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

#90

Post by em-bee »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #82
XorNot wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duress modes are a frequently overlooked feature in general - e.g. I don't want to just block access to my location, I want to lie about my location entirely.

I also would like “give an incorrect location” as an option. Something like that would probably never be supported by Google or Apple officially, because unlike some other privacy features, it’s actively and overtly hostile to advertisers.

murena - e/OS/ has that as a feature.
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