iPhone user shares 'freaky' experience using cycle tracking app as experts issue warning against them
In recent years, users of period tracking apps have expressed concerns about protecting their personal information in the wake of the US Supreme Court overturning the longstanding right to abortion in 2022, leaving it up to the states to decide.
Since then, public fears have grown that data collected from period tracking apps could be used against women and now, one iPhone user has taken to social media to share a ‘freaky’ experience she had while using a cycle tracking app.
Posting to Reddit, the woman revealed that she had been using the app while perimenopausal, meaning her periods were irregular.
She explained: “I use the one that came on my iPhone. Well apparently I had some kind of app on my phone that could access that information… Anyway, last year my period stopped in the fall, then in January I got an email directly in my email in box from Carter’s baby clothes with the subject line ‘Welcome to the family’ and I was really shocked because when I want to sign up for an email newsletter or coupons from a business they usually send a link where you click to confirm you want to get messages from them.
Advert
“I’m Childfree, and like I said I’m almost in menopause, so I most definitely didn’t sign up to get emails about baby clothes.
“I went and looked at the tracking app and it had been 119 days since the first day of my last period, so I guess Carter’s was buying my information from someone and decided that if I was almost 4 months along definitely having this baby because it’s too late to terminate now. I was so freaked out and grossed out. How dare they lol.”
How to protect your data on cycle tracking apps
This revelation led to others sharing their reactions and experiences, with another adding: “Something like this happened to me too - I started seeing a LOT of baby ads, thought maybe I was just being age-targeted for being in my late 20s, and then realized I had forgotten to enter a cycle into the app. Went back and fixed it and all the ads changed back to birth control ads. Immediately deleted the app.”
Many users have been prompted to check the privacy measures implemented on their own tracking apps, with one person sharing how you can check how your health data is used.
This can be found in your device’s Settings app, followed by Privacy & Security, and then Health. There, you should be able to see which apps you have given permission to access information in your health data.
Women in certain US states are urged to delete their period apps
Following the Supreme Court ruling, fears are being raised about the privacy issues surrounding period apps, with research at the University of Cambridge revealing that these apps are a ‘gold mine’ for advertisers.
In a report from the university’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy argues that the ‘financial worth of this data is vastly underestimated by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation’.
Dr Stefanie Felsberger, lead author of the report from Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre, said: “Menstrual cycle tracking apps are presented as empowering women and addressing the gender health gap. 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.”
In particular, concerns are being raised about the 13 states which have the strictest abortion policies. These are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.
Some experts highlight that the data collected and shared with third parties could potentially be passed onto law enforcement, which might impact someone who has had an abortion.