Flo vs The Women of America: When Your Period App Becomes a Weapon

Written by Anvi Sharma

In an era where our phones track everything from our steps to our sleep, period-tracking apps and fertility monitors have become digital confidants for millions of women. But in a post-Roe landscape, these intimate digital diaries have transformed from helpful health tools into potential evidence. The frightening reality? The very technology designed to empower women's health choices could now be used to criminalize them.

Consider this: A typical period-tracking app collects data on menstrual cycles, sexual activity, pregnancy symptoms, and medication use. Combined with location data, search histories, and payment records, this creates a detailed digital footprint of reproductive health decisions. While women have always tracked their cycles, never before has this intimate information been so meticulously documented – and so vulnerable to legal scrutiny.

Recent investigations reveal that many popular femtech apps share or sell user data to third parties, often under vague privacy policies that users never read. More alarming still, some apps' "anonymized" data can be easily re-identified using basic data analysis techniques. In states with restrictive reproductive laws, this digital trail could become evidence in criminal investigations.

Current privacy regulations were written for a different era. HIPAA, our primary health privacy law, only covers traditional healthcare providers – not tech companies collecting health data. The result? Your conversations with your doctor about reproductive health are legally protected, but the same information logged in a period-tracking app has minimal safeguards.

The future of women's health technology hangs in the balance. Will these tools become instruments of surveillance and control, or can we reshape them to truly serve women's needs while protecting their privacy? The answer depends on the actions we take today.

We must demand better: better laws, better technology, and better protections for women's digital privacy. The alternative – a world where women must choose between using modern health tools and protecting their legal rights – is simply unacceptable.

The technology exists to protect privacy while advancing women's health. What we need now is the political will to make it happen. Our digital future, and women's health freedom, depend on it.