A REPORT has found that some menstruation apps are sharing private data about users’ sex lives and cycles to Facebook.

Published by Privacy International, the findings uncovered that at least five cycle-tracking apps were discreetly sharing user data to Facebook through the built-in Facebook SDK for Android.

This feature is a major convenience for users as it allows them to log in to apps using their Facebook account, but the trade-off is that it allows Facebook to track the usage and data submitted to the apps to use for advertisement targeting.

Maya, MIA, My Period Tracker, Ovulation Calculator, and Mi Calendario were all implicated in the findings.

Maya, with over 5 million downloads on Google Play, conducted (at the time of the research) what the researchers believe to be “extensive sharing of sensitive personal data with third parties, including Facebook”.

What Facebook sees when users input “protected sex” details. Source: Privacy International

Privacy International said in their report: “The problem is what you share won’t stay between you and Maya.



“Our traffic analysis reveals, first of all, that Maya informs Facebook when you open the app.



“There is already a lot of information Facebook can assume from that simple notification: that you are probably a woman, probably menstruating, possibly trying to have (or trying to avoid having) a baby.



“Moreover, even though you are asked to agree to their privacy policy, Maya starts sharing data with Facebook before you get to agree to anything.



“This raises some serious transparency concerns.”

It was not just Facebook that received data however, the report showed that medical data is shared with “wrkt.com” too.

Wzrkt stands for “Wizard Rocket”, the former name of a company now known as CleverTap, a “customer retention platform that helps consumer brands maximize user lifetime value, optimize key conversion metrics, and boost retention rates”.

Privacy International highlighted the data concerns because ad space comes at a premium if targeted to pregnant women.

They said: “The data of pregnant women is particularly valuable to advertisers: expecting parents are consumers who are likely to change to their purchasing habits. In the US for instance, an average person’s data is worth $0.10, while a pregnant woman’s will be $1.50.”

This is an extremely worrying use of data and one that is hard to regulate, even for EU users protected by GDPR.

Many of the apps are based outside of the EU and thus are in a lot of grey area when it comes to serving EU customers.

To stay private, there is not a huge amount that you can do besides ensuring you use an app that doesn’t share such data.

Privacy International listed the following apps as ones which were not in breach:

READ THE FULL PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL REPORT HERE

Tom Jarvis http://audioordeal.co.uk Music Producer, DJ, total geek. I am the site owner and main writer at Audio Ordeal and Tech Ordeal. My PC screen is normally filled with unfinished Ableton Live projects or Battlefield games. See author's posts

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