Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.

Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data - Prof Gina Neff

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

This is according to a new report from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.

The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion.

They 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.

File this under "no shit."

The humans in my family who experience menstrual cycles have been pretty happy with Clue who have an explicit promise to never give up your data. YMMV and of course you should evaluate what a promise from this organization means to you.

I don't disagree with that, but the point here was freedom from advertisers and general data privacy, not data portability.

But there is an "export all data" feature in health, though.

For christ sake, is there no open source option for such a simple task?

Edit:
2 people here could point to drip within 15 minutes of my post, and a third to the fact there are options on F-droid. So why the fuck don't women just use that?
Well i guess the ones with harmful advertising have better graphics or somemeting. Or the fact they allow advertising makes them more visible on google play. And you probably can't even get drip on iPhones.

Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.

Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data - Prof Gina Neff

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

This is according to a new report from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.

The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion.

They 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.

Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.

Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data - Prof Gina Neff

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

This is according to a new report from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.

The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion.

They 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.

My wife used to use the tracker in fitbit (I think), but once US states started passing laws to track periods, she's stopped using it. It's the wild west in my house now.

My wife just asks me to grab her boobs and I can generally let her know several days out and be accurate to within half a day.

There are 2 open source menstrual trackers in f-droid. They don't share data.

You want us doing nothing at all unless we get perfect freedom and privacy?

Well on iOS there’s the Apple health app. To my knowledge it stores health data locally. I’ll double check now.

Edit: it does store health data in iCloud by default, but according to Apple its end to end encrypted

By default, iCloud automatically keeps your Health app data, including health records, up to date across your devices. To disable this feature, open iCloud settings and turn off Health. iCloud protects your health records data by encrypting it both in storage and during transmission. If you're using iOS 12 or later and have turned on two-factor authentication for your Apple Account, health records are encrypted using end-to-end encryption through iCloud. This means only you can access this information, and only on devices where you’re signed in to iCloud. No one else, not even Apple, can access end-to-end encrypted information.

Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.

Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data - Prof Gina Neff

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

This is according to a new report from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.

The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion.

They 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.

No, we’re simply using the same logic as you and not letting perfect be the enemy of good. Telling people to use the built in app on the most popular platform because it has infinitely better privacy than all the apps with ads is objectively good advice. My grandma doesn’t know what f-droid is. She doesn’t even know what an operating system is. She also doesn’t know what a software license is.

Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.

Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data - Prof Gina Neff

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

This is according to a new report from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation.

The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion.

They 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.

Wrong, Apple Health fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software. Does Apple really think we are this easy to scam? It bans us from fixing backdoors.

I get that. It shouldn't be necessary to do research just to be sure it's safe. I apologise for my aggressive tone. It must be really scary and exhausting to live somewhere like that. My country is still holding up but seems to be sliding slowly in that direction too.

So do whatever makes you stay safe and feel safe.

Drip (Android/iOS)

I mean, sure - but if you really don't trust Apple to keep their word, then it wouldn't matter if their Health app was FOSS or not. iOS itself is still (and probably forever will be) a closed source operating system. That gives them the power to do anything, including hijack the data from FOSS apps.

Do they include period prediction now?