In a letter posted on her official web site, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has revealed that House Democrats have been engaged on laws to guard private knowledge collected by reproductive well being trackers. It’s one of many three avenues the lawmakers are exploring following the Supreme Court’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Many fear that this information could be used against women by a sinister prosecutor in a state that criminalizes abortion,” she defined, although she did not expound on how the lawmakers plan to guard individuals’s private knowledge. 

Users have been swapping their interval trackers for others they consider can provide them extra privateness ever for the reason that Supreme Court determination dropped. It’s commonplace for firms to promote consumer info or to cooperate with legislation enforcement, and persons are involved about the potential of investigators utilizing that knowledge to determine them in the event that they ever search an abortion. As TechCrunch reported, numerous reproductive well being apps loved a surge of latest signups over the weekend. 

One of these apps is Flo, which introduced that it plans to launch an nameless mode shortly after the Supreme Court determination got here out. The mode is meant to take away one’s private info from their account in order that they cannot be recognized, however Flo has but to disclose when it can turn into out there. It’s value noting that Flo’s common day by day installs has been on the decline, primarily based on Apptopia numbers cited by TechCrunch, possible as a result of it has a historical past of sharing non-public knowledge with third events.

Back in 2019, The Wall Street Journal listed Flo as one of many apps that had been giving Facebook entry to individuals’s delicate knowledge. Two years later, Flo settled with the FTC over allegations that it was sharing info with the social community, Google and different third-party firms. As a part of that settlement, Flo now has to explicitly ask for consumer consent earlier than it can provide exterior providers entry to their private well being info.

Despite the House Speaker’s announcement that House Democrats are working “to protect the health and freedom of American women,” there isn’t any assure that the laws they’re cooking up can be signed into legislation. It’s all the time good to take a better take a look at how apps are defending consumer knowledge by studying their “nutritional label” on iOS or their “safety section” within the Play Store on Android. But for many who wish to be actually protected, maybe the most effective resolution is to not use a interval monitoring app in any respect.