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Period tracker app Flo introduces ‘anonymous mode’ after Roe outcome
Period tracker app Flo is introducing an ‘anonymous mode’ as a response to Roe decision.
After a week since the Roe decision, the period tracker app Flo has announced the introduction of an ‘anonymous mode’ that will protect users from identification.
The announcement has taken place on the app’s social media, as a response to users concerns about how third parties might be able to access their health data. Flo has reassured its users that the new ‘anonymous mode’ will remove personal emails, names and technical data from the users’ accounts.
Users will be able to access the anonymous mode through the Android and iOS app’s settings with the possibility of still enjoying most of the app’s benefits.
The company stated that this new feature was already in the making, but that the Roe decision accelerated its development.
Anonymous Mode will be available to all users in the coming weeks. pic.twitter.com/ZlgnUvTIlI
— Flo Period Tracker (@flotracker) June 30, 2022
Rachel McConnell, director of user experience, said in a statement “now, more than ever, women deserve to access, track, and gain insight into their personal health information without fearing for their safety.”
“By offering anonymous mode, we’re granting another layer of security for our users so they can continue to gain valuable health insights about their bodies without anxiety or concern,” she added.
“Flo will always stand up for the health of women, and this includes providing our users with full control other their data,” added Susanne Schumacher, Flo’s Data Protection Officer. “Flo will never share or sell user data, and only collects data when we have a legal basis to do so and when our users have given their informed content. Any data we do collect is fully encrypted, and this will never change.”
Founded in April 2015, Flo is the most popular women’s health app globally with a 230 million community that enjoys its features in 22 different languages. Flo provides personalised health insights, expert tips and cycle and ovulation tracking to support women during their reproductive lives aiming to build a better future for female health.
Despite the introduction of this new feature, Flo has been subjected to some allegations by the Wall Street Journal that found that the app was sharing its users’ data with Facebook every time they logged in their period dates.
Following these allegations Flo has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that requires the app to review its privacy practices and get app users’ consent before sharing their data.
While Flo denied the allegations, the investigation leaves room for skepticism about how period apps share their users’ health data and about how reliable they really are.
Period apps and privacy after Roe reversal
On a typical period tracking app the user inserts what day her flow has started, when it stopped, how heavy it was and other possible symptoms. This allows the app to create patterns about the users’ periods, having access to when the next flow may come, when they might be most fertile, and mainly about when they miss a period.
The fear amongst women is that law enforcement could use personal data collected from these apps in order to identify women seeking an abortion.
Until this past May, a recent Vice investigation has found that anyone could buy weekly trove of data on clients at more than 600 Planned Parenthood sites around the US for as little as $160.
This is possible only thanks to HIPAA, the 1996 American Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which only protects the privacy of personal data at a doctor office. The Act does not protect any data that tech companies or third-part apps collect from the user.
Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of a Washington-based digital rights non profit, said “In the digital age, this decision opens the door to law enforcement and private bounty hunters seeking vast amount of private data from ordinary Americans.”
Multi-billion companies such as Google and Apple haven’t released any statement yet to inform their users on how they might cooperate with law enforcement.
“Individuals seeking abortions and other reproductive health care will become particularly vulnerable to piracy harms, including through the collection and sharing of their location data,” said the four Democratic lawmakers who asked federal regulators to investigate Apple and Google.
“Data brokers are already selling, licensing and sharing the location information of people that visit abortion providers to anyone with a credit card.” They added.
Black mothers across most of England lack targeted maternal mental health support despite facing higher risks during and after pregnancy, a report has found.
The analysis found a patchwork of provision across England, with inconsistent data, funding and support for Black women.
The vast majority of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) do not commission services specifically for Black maternal mental health, while five hold no information on such provision.
The findings come from Understanding local provision for Black maternal mental health, a briefing produced through the Black Maternal Mental Health project, led by The Motherhood Group in partnership with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and Centre for Mental Health.
The briefing is based on Freedom of Information responses from 35 of England’s 36 ICBs.
Most ICBs rely on general perinatal mental health services, but gaps in available data mean it is impossible to determine whether these services meet the needs of Black mothers, the report found.
Black women face a higher risk of developing mental health problems during and after pregnancy but are less likely to receive the support they need, according to the briefing.
Mental health problems also remain a leading cause of maternal deaths.
The report found that many ICBs do not have a complete picture of activity in their areas, including training delivered by community organisations, making it difficult to hold the NHS to account.
Some ICBs are commissioning targeted services and working with community groups, showing that good practice exists.
The briefing calls on NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to establish clear national guidance on ICBs’ responsibility for commissioning, monitoring and evaluating culturally competent, trauma-informed services for Black mothers, coproduced with Black women and communities.
It also calls for routine, linked data collection on Black mothers’ perinatal mental health experiences and outcomes.
ICBs are also urged to invest sustainably in community-led services, work with organisations trusted by Black mothers and learn from existing good practice, including anti-racism and cultural competency training.
A £254m UK funding package will expand reproductive health access for millions of women and girls across 54 countries.
The government said the investment will support family planning for more than 15 million women each year and could prevent 14 million unintended pregnancies and more than 35,000 maternal deaths by 2028.
The funding will expand access to contraceptives and safe abortion products, as well as medicines and equipment for maternal and newborn healthcare.
Women will be supported to access family planning products including condoms, pills, implants and coils.
The programme will also provide equipment to improve early detection of post-partum haemorrhage, severe bleeding after childbirth, and treatments shown to reduce severe bleeding by almost two thirds.
Kirsty McNeill, minister for development, said: “It is a scandal that women and girls are denied the fundamental right to make informed choices about their own body, free from coercion, discrimination and violence.
“Every woman and girl should be able to make decisions about her own future. That choice can mean staying in school, finding work or surviving childbirth.
“The funding I have announced will help give millions more women and girls across the world autonomy over their bodies, control over their futures, and the chance to fulfil their full potential.”
The funding will be delivered through the CHOICES programme, working with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) across more than 50 of the world’s poorest countries, including conflict zones.
An estimated 259 million women who want to avoid or delay pregnancy are not using safe, modern contraceptive methods.
The government said it will also work with national governments to support sustainable health systems as countries transition away from donor funding.
Maternal deaths have fallen by 40 per cent since 2000, but progress has been uneven, with 70 per cent occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.
CHOICES operates in more than 50 countries, including Afghanistan, Chad, the Gambia, Malawi, Sudan and Yemen. It focuses on countries with the highest rates of death in childbirth and lowest rates of contraceptive use, as well as providing emergency support during humanitarian crises.
A health trust will decide how far back to review breast cancer cases after more than 30 women were found to have undergone unnecessary surgery.
It has already been established that hundreds of patients came to harm during treatment at the breast unit at County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT).
The trust has apologised and is using specialists from other hospitals to review cases to see if other women underwent unnecessary operations or received otherwise poor care.
An extraordinary trust board meeting in Durham will consider the scope of its Look Back Exercise.
Board papers recommend reviewing cases as far back as 2015, working backwards one year at a time.
Documents estimate that this could take five years and involve reviewing the care of approximately 4,500 patients.
Members of the Pink Justice Network, an online support group for women who have received breast cancer treatment from the trust, will attend the meeting.
Nadeen Lister, who runs the group of around 150 women with Amelia Green, said members were calling for a public inquiry into what went wrong.
Lister told the Press Association: “When we started the group, nobody was talking about compensation, they just wanted justice for what has been done.
“The Look Back Exercise has cost the trust more than £500,000 this year, with staff checking back over records, medical experts reviewing cases and psychological help offered to patients affected.”
Green said the trust could avoid the expense of the exercise “by backing our call for a public inquiry”.
Hayley Collinson, of Hudgell Solicitors, which represents many affected patients, said: “Given the scale of harm revealed so far, we can’t see how the Trust board can come to any other decision than to extend this lookback investigation given the findings of the first batch of cases to have been reviewed, and the high percentage of harm being identified.
“The reality is that any woman who had breast cancer treatment at this Trust from 2015 onwards is now going to be questioning whether their treatment was appropriate and if they were actually harmed.”
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