Using free health apps to track your sleep or periods? Be warned...
Daily MailWhether they monitor sleep, count steps or track periods, nowadays there are free apps which promise to improve every aspect of your life. Privacy mavens warn health tracking apps – especially ones downloaded for free – may potentially use your personal health data for advertising or other commercial purposes. They found many of the apps made money by sharing users' personal information to businesses to target users with specific And in 2022, an analysis of the 25 most popular menstrual cycle tracker apps in the UK by the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps, a company which assesses health app safety for the NHS, found as many as four out of five apps share users' personal data with third parties. Ms Barker-Paton warned users of period apps everywhere, especially free versions, that they could be giving away highly personal, and valuable, data. 'It's crucial for users, especially women, to understand that by using such apps, they might be unwittingly sharing sensitive health information that could be used for commercial purposes,' she says.
History of this topic
Period tracking apps, surveillance capitalism, health data privacy : Short Wave : NPR
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The women’s health tech boom: How private is my period data?
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