Latest news with #DrStefanieFelsberger
Sky News
2 days ago
- Health
- Sky News
'Frightening safety risks': Women warned about the dangers of using period tracker apps
Women face "frightening privacy and safety risks" when using period tracker apps, experts have warned. The personal information collected in these apps - including exercise, diet, medication, sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use - could be "sold at scale" to pose "risks and harms for users", academics from the University of Cambridge said. A report from experts at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy stated that menstrual data can offer insights into women's health and their reproductive choices, making the apps that collect them a "gold mine" for consumer profiling. "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," Dr Stefanie Felsberger, lead author of the report said. The researchers said many women download the apps when they are trying to get pregnant, which leads to a 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 report stated that 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". "CTA data is not only commercially valuable and shared with an inextricable net of third parties (thereby making intimate user information exploitable for targeted advertising), but it also poses severe security risks for users," the authors wrote. The experts point out that the collected data could result in health insurance "discrimination", risks to job prospects or even domestic abuse if it lands in the wrong hands. They called for better governance of the "femtech" industry, including improved data security and "meaningful consent options" in these apps and urged public health bodies to launch alternatives to commercial period tracking apps.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Public health bodies urged to launch period tracking apps to protect data
Public health bodies should launch alternatives to commercial period tracker apps, experts have said, as a report warns women's personal data is at risk of being harvested by private companies. Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a 'goldmine' for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to the research by the University of Cambridge. And the financial worth of this data is 'vastly underestimated' by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking regulation, the report says. In the wrong hands, cycle tracking app (CTA) data could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking, and even limit access to abortion, the research suggests. The authors call for better governance of the booming femtech industry to protect users when their data is sold at scale, arguing that apps must provide clear consent options rather than all-or-nothing data collection, and urge public health bodies to launch alternatives to commercial CTAs. 'Menstrual cycle tracking apps are presented as empowering women and addressing the gender health gap,' said the report's lead author, Dr Stefanie Felsberger, of Cambridge's Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. '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.' Most cycle tracking apps are targeted at women aiming to get pregnant, so the download data alone is of huge commercial value, according to the report. Along with homebuying, no other life event is linked to such dramatic shifts in consumer behaviour. Data on pregnancy is believed to be more than 200 times more valuable than data on age, gender or location for targeted advertising. The report says period tracking could also be used to target women at different points in their cycle. The three most popular apps had estimated global download figures of a quarter of a billion in 2024. The femtech market – digital products focused on women's health and wellbeing – will be worth more than $60bn (£44bn) by 2027, the report says. With such intense demand for period tracking, the authors called on public health bodies including the NHS in the UK to develop their own transparent and trustworthy apps to rival those from private companies, with apps allowing permission for data to be used in medical research. 'The UK is ideally positioned to solve the question of access to menstrual data for researchers, as well as privacy and data commodification concerns, by developing an NHS app to track menstrual cycles,' said Felsberger, who added that the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood in the US already had its own app but the UK lacked an equivalent. 'Apps that are situated within public healthcare systems, and not driven primarily by profit, will mitigate privacy violations, provide much-needed data on reproductive health, and give people more agency over how their menstrual data is used.' Prof Gina Neff, the executive director of the Minderoo Centre, said: '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.' In the UK and EU, period tracking data is considered 'special category', as with that on genetics or ethnicity, and has more legal safeguarding. In the US, data on menstrual cycles has been collected by officials in an attempt to undermine abortion access, the report says.
