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Pregnancy and period tracking apps corrupt women’s privacy, study reveals
June 2022 by Atlas VPN
The Roe v. Wade overturn destroyed 50 years of progress in women’s rights to privacy and the ability to choose for themselves.
According to the data collected by the Atlas VPN team, apps dedicated to women’s health, like pregnancy or period trackers, heavily collect sensitive data and share it with third parties. After the Supreme Court in the US overturned Roe v. Wade, information gathered from these apps could be used as evidence for getting an abortion.
A few most popular women’s health apps stand out when looking at trackers. Pregnancy App & Baby Tracker (Babycenter) has 15 trackers on their Android and 20 trackers on iOS applications.
Pregnancy Tracker & baby app WTE has 7 and 22 trackers on its Android and iOS versions, respectively.
Flo Period tracker & calendar app seems to have 2 trackers, the least among Android apps. At the same time, the MeetYou Period Tracker application has 3, the least amount of trackers among women’s health apps on iOS devices.
Permissions spy on your data
Permissions help the user regulate and control which system and device functions the application can access.
MeetYou Period Tracker has 36 permissions on their Android app, 8 of which could be considered dangerous. The iOS application requires 7 permissions, giving access to data that can be used to track you.
Pregnancy Tracker & baby app WTE on Android devices has 19 permissions (3 dangerous), meanwhile, the iOS version has 9. The least amount of permissions on Android and iOS devices can be found in the Spot on period tracker, 7 and 4, respectively.
During our research, we found some apps that even ask for permissions to access your search history and contact information, like your name and email address. Later on, this data could be sold to third-party services and used against women who are considering getting an abortion.
