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Menstrual tracking app data is a ‘gold mine’ for advertisers that risks women’s safety (www.cam.ac.uk)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

137 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (45 children)

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.

[–] ace_of_based 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

i'd like to point out that it shouldn't be on women (or anyone) to be on constant guard against attacks on their privacy.

yes, it is the state of the world, but the attitude of your comment is victim blaming.

let's not forget that while we on Lemmy may be aware of the danger of mass surveillance tech, we're not the majority.

snowden told us years ago how fucked everything is, and surveillance has only grown since then. let's not forget that it is not normal that corpo data-mining is the norm (along with included de-facto warrantless surveillance). Even though we all should be better, nobody should have to be as careful as we are.

hell, let's be real. As long as we use a smartphone, we're not being careful enough either.

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