Submitted 2 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
VANCOUVER - A British Columbia Supreme Court judge says a class-action lawsuit can move forward over alleged privacy breaches against a company that made an app to track users’ menstrual and fertility cycles. The ruling published online Friday says the action against Flo Health Inc. alleges the company shared users’ highly personal health information with third-parties, including Facebook, Google and other companies.
Result: “sorry we shared your personal data, here’s a check for 38 cents. “
Damn man, my gf pays for this app. That’s how we track her days. Corpos even know when we’re probably having sex now D:.
Even your car might know.
For those that aren’t aware: invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=OYcmF9IAJbU
Stop paying for something that could easily be done with a pencil and a regular paper calendar.
Tell me you’re a man without telling me you’re a man
Wow, my girlfriend uses this. Time to get her a FOSS-grown solution. Fuck the corpos!
They need to fix their SSL certification.
Come on, it is the 21st century.
Nobody should assume any other reason to create such an app than to harvest and sell personal medical data.
Unless:
I am glad I finally got my wife use this Foss alternative instated of some garbage that sends your data to a proprietary server.
Unless:
The existence of this app should be spread far and wide for every woman to use, versus the privacy invading ones that are out there.
Periodical is no wifi, no bs and stored locally on your phone storage. Also is about 5mb in size so pretty minimal. If anyone is interested here’s the link f-droid.org/…/de.arnowelzel.android.periodical/
That’s f’ed up.
Man, sometimes I feel like we’ve lost our spirit. I’m hopeful we can get it back, but these articles tell a different story. I hope for better days.
Your comment sounds AI generated lmao
Here are some privacy focused alternatives (only for android 😕): pluja.github.io/awesome-privacy/#menstrual-cycle-…
I wrote a period tracker app that also encrypts/password protects the data at rest. If you’re concerned about someone taking your phone and accessing your data, it may also be worth a look.
github.com/cameroncros/PrivatePeriodTracker
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cross.p…
Drip looks better for most people though. But they should add encryption if they dont already have it.
Encryption and password protection is in the changelog for drips first version v0.0.1 - 5 years ago
I couldnt find your app on fdroid btw
It’s 2024. People still assume apps installed on their phones aren’t siphoning every single 1 and 0 on your phone including your texts and recordings of your voice calls and then selling that data to a 3rd party advertising firm.
Why in FUCKS name would you put your menstrual cycle data on an app that some stranger made?
It’s useful?
Agreed. Although I think the usefulness of the apps are aimed at tracking fertility to help people get pregnant. Which is even more scummy that they sell the data.
I think you may be way underestimating the number of people who have no idea the software they use is spying on them.
If it’s under free licence like MIT, GPL or alike app can be inspected what it does and anything out of place we can remove.
I remember back in my teenage days, I tried to track some menstruations. It didn’t end well.
Classic mistake. You weren’t rich enough.
There’s not a word in this article about why this breach of privacy matters while others do not. It’s not stated whether this was in the terms of service for the app, and whether those terms were ruled against.
All kinds of apps have been selling personal information for a long time, and it’s been ruled before that it’s allowed if they have the proper legalese in the terms of service. Did this app just not have any terms of service?
Why is it a breach of privacy for this app, but other apps doing the same selling of personal data is not?
Why is it a breach of privacy for this app, but other apps doing the same selling of personal data is not?
From the article…
The lawsuit alleges that Flo Health misused users’ personal information “for its own financial gain,” claiming breach of privacy, breach of confidence and “intrusion upon seclusion.”
IANAL, but my understanding, after having read the whole article, is that regardless of the fact that there may or may not have been an agreement between the app creator and its users, that they still ran foul of laws that cannot be waived by any sort of agreement.
I read the article too, and those things you quoted sound to me like things every app does.
Hence my question: what is different here?
Why the fuck would you ever enter that kind of information into your phone? Did they ever make any promises about it all being end-to-end encrypted?
Are the owners of the app based in a privacy friendly country? What kind of things do they require for passwords?
Worse than betterhelp right there. people that use services like those are fucking sheep.
Period’s are awful to keep track of yourself, it’s not a perfect, “every 4 weeks for 5 days” thing. Those apps actually recalculate the beginning and end of a period when something abnormal happens, like stress moving the period back a few days. This way you don’t need to keep it in a personal calendar, which mind you, a lot of people don’t even have.
Btw, most apps do also more than just regular tracking, they can predict how bad blod flow will be, and if your periods are known to be rather painful, they can keep track and remind you when a day comes on which you’d need to pack a few extra painkillers.
Hard to argue with any of those points. Nice of you to kindly elaborate for people trying to blame the victims of the scheme.
This way you don’t need to keep it in a personal calendar, which mind you, a lot of people don’t even have.
proton unlimited, proton calendar. Completely private and end-to-end encrypted.
But okay, I guess these apps can be helpful. I still think it’s a terrible idea to enter information like that into an app that doesn’t guarantee privacy. That’s sensitive medical data. I don’t give a fuck what any ToS says, no one except you should have the power to give away that kind of information about yourself.
I dislike the commenter’s attitude, but I do agree with parts of the message. I would prefer to treat any closed-source, internet-connected app as “collecting everything it can”, just because it has been the logic for a while. I would not trust my messaging or files to a centralized, closed platform - so why would I use something suspicious for health data this sensitive?
Right, but the privacy implications trump all of that for me.
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 months ago
free, open source, everything stored locally: dripapp.org
aniki@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Of all the things you most certainly do not need to upload to the cloud…
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I mean cloud apps are popular because they are convenient. It’s just a shame that they are invariably infested with toxic capitalism. And now apparently Christian fascists.
Shelena@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Thanks! Was looking for something more privacy focused. I had not found this one.
rmstyle@feddit.de 2 months ago
I am quite impressed by the funders, German state and Mozilla. Wow.
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 2 months ago
im giggling like an idiot at that name