Periods, a taboo topic for a larger part of society and a natural occurrence that 26% of the population have. The topic of periods is normally hush hush with many people who don’t have them for a variety of reasons, disgust, apathy, or outright disdain. With the topic of periods so heavily under wraps by the greater part of society, it’s a shocking turn of events when in the middle of 2022 multiple states in the US started requesting access to their citizens menstrual cycles on multiple apps. The move came after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
State Governments are requesting the sensitive information after banning abortion in various stages to make sure no one is avoiding the law. By being able to see if someone using a menstrual cycle tracking app had a prolonged gap between occurrences of menstrual bleeding they can see if there’s even a possibility that an abortion occurred.
Data brokers would have access to the information on period apps and locations if a person is at a clinic. Legislation has been put into place all the way up at the federal level to protect that private information. Protective steps have also been taken by big tech companies themselves. A week after the overturning of Roe v Wade, Google made a blog post saying they will delete location history for anyone who visits a clinic that provides abortion services.
The issue that states are having is not with data brokers and location tracking, but the apps data being looked at by law enforcement. In Virginia a proposed bill that would protect menstrual app data from search warrants was shelved. In that state, any app based health care is available via a search warrant, lawmakers believe this should also be allowed with Period tracking apps.
Online apps such as Flo Count are identified as a personal record, akin to a diary rather than a medical record so the HIPAA laws that protect the privacy of a person’s medical records fails to protect these period tracking apps. The lack of protections on the apps makes obtaining a search warrant for the data incredibly easy.
With this possible threat to their users, the creators of these apps have been put in the hot seat to provide protection. One app, Flo, announced that they will offer an anonymous mode to further protect users’ already encrypted data. The mode is completely optional and limits the access to features like cross syncing data, history of chat bot use, and identifying payment features. These features will minimize the possibility of an account being linked back to a person who may be under investigation for getting access to an abortion out of their state.
While the fear of personal online data being used to go after people seeking abortions seems it has happened throughout the years. Laura Huss, a researcher at If/When/Now, a reproductive non forprofit group, found 61 cases where women were investigated or arrested for abortions they self managed in a twenty year range from 2000 to 2020. Her findings were that they didn’t use apps like Flo but instead other forms of data, google locations, text messages, and searches for fertility and abortion clinics.
One infamous case from 2015 was that of Purvi Patel she was arrested for a self induced abortion, a ruling later overturned by the court system. The arrest came from Indiana’s feticide law, which the Associated Press reported the law wasn’t intended “to be used to prosecute women for their own abortions.” The court that overturned the ruling said the law “intended for any criminal liability to be imposed on medical personnel, not women who perform their own abortions.”
Period tracking apps are a high level of privacy for many of their users. With these laws being introduced and shelved there’s no telling what the end result will be for apps and the app users.
