Call for NHS-backed period tracking app to protect women’s data from commercial misuse

Public health bodies should create official period tracking apps to compete with commercial versions, experts say, amid rising concerns over how private companies collect and sell women’s sensitive health data.

Cycle tracking apps (CTAs), often presented as tools for empowerment or managing fertility, are a “goldmine” for advertisers, according to research from the University of Cambridge.

Many collect details ranging from diet and medication to sexual activity and contraception use—often without users realising how the data is used.

The report, by Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, warns that the business model behind most CTAs is built on profiting from personal health data. It says the lack of regulation leaves users exposed to risks.

Dr Stefanie Felsberger, the report’s lead author, said: “There are real and frightening privacy and safety risks to women as a result of the commodification of the data collected by cycle tracking app companies.”

She warned that data could be used to affect job prospects, allow workplace surveillance, increase the risk of health insurance discrimination, or limit access to abortion.

Although the apps are marketed as health tools—particularly for those trying to conceive—the report says they operate in a system where user data is routinely shared with third parties for profit.

Information about pregnancy is particularly valuable for targeted advertising—estimated to be worth more than 200 times as much as data on age, gender or location.

The report notes that data could also be used to target women depending on the stage of their cycle.

The three most-used period tracking apps were downloaded globally around 250 million times in 2024.

The wider femtech market—which includes digital tools aimed at women’s health—is expected to exceed US$60bn by 2027.

The authors call for stronger oversight of the growing femtech sector and clearer consent options for users.

They argue that public health agencies should offer transparent alternatives to commercial apps, with clearer data use policies.

Felsberger said: “The UK is ideally positioned to solve the question of access to menstrual data for researchers, as well as privacy and data commodification concerns, by developing an NHS app to track menstrual cycles.”

She noted that the US reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood already has its own app, while the UK currently lacks a comparable public option.

Felsberger said: “Apps situated within public healthcare systems, and not driven primarily by profit, will mitigate privacy violations, provide much-needed data on reproductive health, and give people more agency over how their menstrual data is used.”

Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre, added: “The use of cycle tracking apps is at an all-time high.

“Women deserve better than to have their menstrual tracking data treated as consumer data.”