People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion.
And facebook doesn't care about people's rights when those people in power are able to block Facebook from acquiring some new startup they want to buy, so facebook is willing to share the information.
If you stop having a period for a few months and then start again, it may be worth buying some location data during that time to see if you were near any medical offices that may have offered illegal abortion services.
I don’t have the right configuration of equipment to use an app like this, but does anyone know why this needs to be a service-driven app? What piece of functionality requires a server to track your health?
Not being a women, I've always wondered what insight the app gives regardless of data traveling to a server... does it do anything you can't do with a simple notebook app (like Apple's default Notes)?
If you have an irregular period, does this app help "guess" when it's going to start/end?
If you have a regular period, why do you need an app at all?
My partner uses the app this article is about (Flo) and I have an account there too in order for her to share the data with me.
I guess you could do it with some sort of P2P sync with cryptography involved locally instead, and/or E2E for stuff sent via the servers. Kind of surprised me they didn't have E2E already, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore.
Better revenue model? Pushing some data to the server, serving ads to the app, reselling demographic data, etc all allow for more revenue than just the price of installation.
There are almost certainly other apps in the space that don’t need a server, don’t phone home to Meta, and are lower priced, but they probably aren’t as good at marketing.
From my experience in the startup world, I would wager that this developer probably wanted to track marketing campaign installs (Meta library is required to close the loop on Facebook/Instagram ad conversions after app install) or wanted a feature from some Meta library they integrated but didn’t realize or care about the consequences.
I'm assuming the question should be further refined to "why does the service need to know the data". The things that you mention could be done with the service only having the encrypted blob.
I have actually been playing around with scoping a privacy first version of these tracking apps that store all the data locally with optional sync. It's technically possible, but there's very little in the way of revenue generation there. So it's same issue as always, capitalism corrupts.
> It seems like we can’t just necessarily leave it up to companies – or their ragtag teams of crackpot lawyers rewriting privacy policies every few months – to keep our private data private.
It's not a medical requirement from a doctor, so just keep a diary if you want to. Not everything needs to be an app. All the money spent on regulations and regulators to cover increasingly niche opt-in services that are entirely unnecessary is a waste.
I've never used Flo specifically, so I don't know what kind of data analysis it has available, but period data is the #1 most useful health data to have an app crunch for you, and "your period starts tomorrow" is a pretty darn useful notification to get.
Most of the women I know well enough to know this about them track and predict the onset of their next period without needing an application. It isn't exactly rocket science.
We're using Flo specifically, mostly for sharing stuff like "her period starts tomorrow" to the both of us, she doesn't really need a notification for that :)
A paper diary doesn't predict your periods or ovulation. Quite the arrogance to describe this as niche and unneccessary when tens of millions of women think otherwise. And it's all their fault, of course.
Even if it was a requirement, doctors do not generally have legal authority to compel action. Hell, the average doctor would probably agree that the average patient hardly ever does what they’re told…
They need to make an example out of these companies. If your whole business model is built around handling sensitive data, and you are caught shipping off that data to brokers, you should be liquidated or at least fined to within an inch of bankruptcy, as basically all of your profits are a sham.
There needs to be penalties that piece the "limited liability" because otherwise it's just "pay to get away with it" as we currently have.
I've been for a "corporate death penalty" (if companies are people, they can be executed) which would result in the shareholders losing everything along with executives being perp-walked.
What does thumbing their noses mean? They have been paying while continuing their behavior, or not paying at all?
The first seems like it could be resolved with an escalating fine schedule, and the second could be mitigated by requiring Apple/Google to remove it from the app store (one of the rare cases walled gardens are on consumers' side).
"While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow developers to link to alternative payment options, the policies still required the developer to provide a 27% revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction, placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-party payment system to the App Store in May 2025."
> All the money spent on regulations and regulators to cover increasingly niche opt-in services that are entirely unnecessary is a waste.
That isn't what's happening. The regulations don't get little niche cases added to them, they're writen to be generally applicable to all niches.
> It's not a medical requirement from a doctor, so just keep a diary if you want to.
"Just don't use the computer if you don't want companies to rat you out to the fascist government that'll imprison or kill you for having a miscarriage" is a ridiculous victim-blaming position.
It's the practical reality of a fascist government that they won't enact privacy laws. And yes, women really shouldn't be using period tracking apps in the US, or made by the US. But that doesn't mean privacy laws are some "silly waste of my tax money".
It's not a "medical requirement" except for the many many many cases where it is. Similarly, this position extends to literally everything. Nothing "needs to be an app". But unless we want to pack up and discard the entire software industry, it really ought to be better about privacy like this.
Why is it a waste? If you want to provide an app, one should follow the law and the regulations. It isn't the wild west (and even that had regulations).
Nobody is blaming victims, please stop these wild fabulations. OP meant that you can't trust app owners especially long term, as you write its worse than wild west, literally nobody.gives.a.fuck. till they are dragged to the court, then they fight, dissolve company, still sell the data, start a new one and rinse and repeat. People are simply way more greedy than moral on average if there is any lesson in current times.
Look at say zuckenberg - a typical sociopath lying again and again through his nose with big grin just to get what he wants (ie scandals how FB employees go to DB to spy on their exes or enemies is popping up for 10 years at least and there is no stop, every time there is another assurance how it can't be done now blablabla... and thats just specific meta employees).
Nobody likes that, but just sitting and waiting for almighty regulators while blindly trusting apps in good faith to do their jobs is... not working much, is it. Be smart, adapt to real environment out there, not some wishful thinking. In parallel push for change as much as you can, vote with wallet and your time. Once sought-for paradise comes then feel free to use anything anyhow. At least that seems like smarter approach to me.
So add liability for the buyers of the data or any services derived from the data (e.g. targeted ads). Make it so large advertisers demand audits showing privacy laws are being followed. Also have personal criminal liability for people building and maintaining systems that collect, store, or process data for illegal purposes. Executives, PMs, engineers, the whole lot. Put them in prison if they continue.
Why would anyone think that a non-HIPPA compliant app would keep medical information private to the level of security needed for medical data? Flo has definitely breached user trust, but that trust seems misplaced from the get-go.
People are used to living in highly regulated markets. When they go to a grocery store to buy lettuce, people don't stop to ask "what regulatory regime is this lettuce being sold under?". They just trust that food being sold in a food store will meet our societal standards for food. I can go to Amazon and order a raw steak for delivery, and still trust it will meet standards.
The situation with wellness apps is that they are a product that are designed specifically to exist outside of the regulatory regime that people associate with them.
>Why would anyone think that a non-HIPPA compliant app would keep medical information private to the level of security needed for medical data?
because lots of people dont know what HIPPA is, and (naively to us more familiar with tech) assume that a medical-related app on a curated app store would be safe for medical-related stuff.
You're right, though; it's much more limited than people think. During COVID people claimed everything violated HIPAA (masks, vaccine requirements, testing), but it only applies in a very narrow subset of patient/provider relationships.
People just wanna track stuff, they don't really look into is something HIPPA compliant or read the ToS. App store push, recommendation, word of mouth are what makes the app like this spread, not really details HIPPA compliance.
Does anyone happen to know if Meta and Google have ever recovered these judgements from the app developers? All of the industry terms of service specifically forbid SDK licensees from sending sensitive personal data to the platforms, and they require the licensee to indemnify the platform against any judgement that arises from violating those terms. See Meta's statement on this verdict, which seems pretty reasonable to me. This 100% looks like the fault of the app developer:
“User privacy is important to Meta, which is why we do not want health or other sensitive information and why our terms prohibit developers from sending any.” Meta maintains that any transmission of sensitive health data is due to a failure to comply with its terms of use.
I won't read this because it has the ridiculous word yapping in it. I wish people were better about not adopting the dumbest slang and spreading it so far and wide.
its crazy to me that Flo is used so widely, as its started by Russian men and their treatment of data has bee public for a while, it just hasnt spread fast enough. I know theres at least one other option called Calessa (http://Calessa.app)
I think that kind of thinking is similar to the "both sides" stuff in politics. There's a meaningful difference in trustworthiness between different options.
For instance, if you need to track your period, the built in iOS apps are secure, especially if you're using advanced icloud encryption.
I'll make a period tracker for you for 5 bucks a month. You won't buy it, because it costs 5 bucks a month. So I'll have to find alternative monetisation strategies.
Why would me giving you 5 bucks a month assure you didn't also sell all of the data from the period tracker app? That's money you'd just be leaving on the table.
There are four open source period tracking apps on F-droid. I didn't do a full investigation of the source code, but unless your data is being uploaded outside the app (e.g. for backups), I feel safe assuming it will stay local only.
It sounds like the real solution to this is to be able to control permissions at an OS level for network per app, as you would be able to do if you had root access. I have no idea why regular Android distros don't allow you to do this, it seems like a really sensible thing to expose in app settings given the permissions model of Android.
If you're paying for a subscription, the company might sell your data. If you're using a commercial service for free, they are certainly selling your data.
Having said that, you're right to be suspicious of commercial services, even that you pay for. Someone can found a startup with a strong commitment to customer privacy and the best of intentions, but a few acquisitions or near bankruptcies later, those commitments will go out the window.
Relevant to this case, since they have a free version and premium one, they would probably just sell data from both sets of customers. It would be leaving money on the table otherwise, right?
The small chance that they might go out of their way to not sell premium users data doesn't seem worth much.
Less a f-u-view, more a f-u-world, the above is pragmatic advice about the actual IRL challenges of keeping data secure.
Further, a view that ignores many real world digital data risks faced by those considered to be useful targets; eg: compromised supply chains delivering "pre hacked" hardware with discreet wifi chips or hidden out of band comms, etc.
Hey surely Meta wouldn’t send that data to a government interested in regulating women’s reproductive rights
I'll bite. Why...?
People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion.
And facebook doesn't care about people's rights when those people in power are able to block Facebook from acquiring some new startup they want to buy, so facebook is willing to share the information.
If you stop having a period for a few months and then start again, it may be worth buying some location data during that time to see if you were near any medical offices that may have offered illegal abortion services.
Could they get a warrant for that data anyway?
How would they select which women get warrants served if they don't have some basic cycle-tracking data?
Why get a warrant when you can just buy it?
This whole data economy has significantly undermined privacy, including 4th amendment protections.
Not if you don't have the data. This is one of the reasons that google changed how it tracked people's data.
You can't (in theory) get a warrant "just because", you need to state the grounds for the search in your application for a warrant.
What reason would they have to ask for a warrant without that data?
Meta is a defense contractor. They absolutely would do this for money if asked. Just like how a good portion of HN would.
I don’t have the right configuration of equipment to use an app like this, but does anyone know why this needs to be a service-driven app? What piece of functionality requires a server to track your health?
Not being a women, I've always wondered what insight the app gives regardless of data traveling to a server... does it do anything you can't do with a simple notebook app (like Apple's default Notes)?
If you have an irregular period, does this app help "guess" when it's going to start/end?
If you have a regular period, why do you need an app at all?
My partner uses the app this article is about (Flo) and I have an account there too in order for her to share the data with me.
I guess you could do it with some sort of P2P sync with cryptography involved locally instead, and/or E2E for stuff sent via the servers. Kind of surprised me they didn't have E2E already, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore.
Or, you know, she could just track it without any app at all and share it with you in person.
Yeah, and I could send you a letter instead of replying to your HN comment, what's your point?
Better revenue model? Pushing some data to the server, serving ads to the app, reselling demographic data, etc all allow for more revenue than just the price of installation.
There are almost certainly other apps in the space that don’t need a server, don’t phone home to Meta, and are lower priced, but they probably aren’t as good at marketing.
From my experience in the startup world, I would wager that this developer probably wanted to track marketing campaign installs (Meta library is required to close the loop on Facebook/Instagram ad conversions after app install) or wanted a feature from some Meta library they integrated but didn’t realize or care about the consequences.
I'm not familiar with this app, but a service lets you do potentially nice things like cross device sync and sharing observations with trusted others.
I'm assuming the question should be further refined to "why does the service need to know the data". The things that you mention could be done with the service only having the encrypted blob.
The spying part requires a server.
If you use GrapheneOS, you can enable or disable internet access for each app.
> If you use GrapheneOS, you can enable or disable internet access for each app.
Not sure what information you're expecting the app in question to surface if you disable internet access for it.
I have actually been playing around with scoping a privacy first version of these tracking apps that store all the data locally with optional sync. It's technically possible, but there's very little in the way of revenue generation there. So it's same issue as always, capitalism corrupts.
> It seems like we can’t just necessarily leave it up to companies – or their ragtag teams of crackpot lawyers rewriting privacy policies every few months – to keep our private data private.
It's not a medical requirement from a doctor, so just keep a diary if you want to. Not everything needs to be an app. All the money spent on regulations and regulators to cover increasingly niche opt-in services that are entirely unnecessary is a waste.
I've never used Flo specifically, so I don't know what kind of data analysis it has available, but period data is the #1 most useful health data to have an app crunch for you, and "your period starts tomorrow" is a pretty darn useful notification to get.
Most of the women I know well enough to know this about them track and predict the onset of their next period without needing an application. It isn't exactly rocket science.
We're using Flo specifically, mostly for sharing stuff like "her period starts tomorrow" to the both of us, she doesn't really need a notification for that :)
A paper diary doesn't predict your periods or ovulation. Quite the arrogance to describe this as niche and unneccessary when tens of millions of women think otherwise. And it's all their fault, of course.
Even if it was a requirement, doctors do not generally have legal authority to compel action. Hell, the average doctor would probably agree that the average patient hardly ever does what they’re told…
privacy legislation would just solve the problem by itself though.
Privacy legislation by itself does not solve the problem; what Flo did was already illegal. Effective enforcement is also necessary.
They need to make an example out of these companies. If your whole business model is built around handling sensitive data, and you are caught shipping off that data to brokers, you should be liquidated or at least fined to within an inch of bankruptcy, as basically all of your profits are a sham.
Fined into bankruptcy and all managers up to and including the CEO criminally charged.
There needs to be penalties that piece the "limited liability" because otherwise it's just "pay to get away with it" as we currently have.
I've been for a "corporate death penalty" (if companies are people, they can be executed) which would result in the shareholders losing everything along with executives being perp-walked.
Not just executives. They don't will these things into existence. Someone had to build functionality to send user data to Facebook.
They've been thumbing their noses at EU privacy legislation and fines for quite some time already.
What does thumbing their noses mean? They have been paying while continuing their behavior, or not paying at all?
The first seems like it could be resolved with an escalating fine schedule, and the second could be mitigated by requiring Apple/Google to remove it from the app store (one of the rare cases walled gardens are on consumers' side).
> What does thumbing their noses mean? They have been paying while continuing their behavior, or not paying at all?
Malicious compliance. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
"While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow developers to link to alternative payment options, the policies still required the developer to provide a 27% revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction, placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-party payment system to the App Store in May 2025."
Or https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/
"UPDATE: Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA."
(This one resulted in enough fuss they backed down.)
Ah you mean generally, not in this specific case.
> privacy legislation would just solve the problem by itself though
Just like banning drugs and murder did!
"would just solve", lol.
> All the money spent on regulations and regulators to cover increasingly niche opt-in services that are entirely unnecessary is a waste.
That isn't what's happening. The regulations don't get little niche cases added to them, they're writen to be generally applicable to all niches.
> It's not a medical requirement from a doctor, so just keep a diary if you want to.
"Just don't use the computer if you don't want companies to rat you out to the fascist government that'll imprison or kill you for having a miscarriage" is a ridiculous victim-blaming position.
It's the practical reality of a fascist government that they won't enact privacy laws. And yes, women really shouldn't be using period tracking apps in the US, or made by the US. But that doesn't mean privacy laws are some "silly waste of my tax money".
It's not a "medical requirement" except for the many many many cases where it is. Similarly, this position extends to literally everything. Nothing "needs to be an app". But unless we want to pack up and discard the entire software industry, it really ought to be better about privacy like this.
Forest for the trees, dude.
Why is it a waste? If you want to provide an app, one should follow the law and the regulations. It isn't the wild west (and even that had regulations).
Also: Why blame the victims, not the perp?
Nobody is blaming victims, please stop these wild fabulations. OP meant that you can't trust app owners especially long term, as you write its worse than wild west, literally nobody.gives.a.fuck. till they are dragged to the court, then they fight, dissolve company, still sell the data, start a new one and rinse and repeat. People are simply way more greedy than moral on average if there is any lesson in current times.
Look at say zuckenberg - a typical sociopath lying again and again through his nose with big grin just to get what he wants (ie scandals how FB employees go to DB to spy on their exes or enemies is popping up for 10 years at least and there is no stop, every time there is another assurance how it can't be done now blablabla... and thats just specific meta employees).
Nobody likes that, but just sitting and waiting for almighty regulators while blindly trusting apps in good faith to do their jobs is... not working much, is it. Be smart, adapt to real environment out there, not some wishful thinking. In parallel push for change as much as you can, vote with wallet and your time. Once sought-for paradise comes then feel free to use anything anyhow. At least that seems like smarter approach to me.
> still sell the data
So add liability for the buyers of the data or any services derived from the data (e.g. targeted ads). Make it so large advertisers demand audits showing privacy laws are being followed. Also have personal criminal liability for people building and maintaining systems that collect, store, or process data for illegal purposes. Executives, PMs, engineers, the whole lot. Put them in prison if they continue.
Why would anyone think that a non-HIPPA compliant app would keep medical information private to the level of security needed for medical data? Flo has definitely breached user trust, but that trust seems misplaced from the get-go.
People are used to living in highly regulated markets. When they go to a grocery store to buy lettuce, people don't stop to ask "what regulatory regime is this lettuce being sold under?". They just trust that food being sold in a food store will meet our societal standards for food. I can go to Amazon and order a raw steak for delivery, and still trust it will meet standards.
The situation with wellness apps is that they are a product that are designed specifically to exist outside of the regulatory regime that people associate with them.
>Why would anyone think that a non-HIPPA compliant app would keep medical information private to the level of security needed for medical data?
because lots of people dont know what HIPPA is, and (naively to us more familiar with tech) assume that a medical-related app on a curated app store would be safe for medical-related stuff.
> lots of people dont know what HIPPA is
Ironically, it's HIPAA.
You're right, though; it's much more limited than people think. During COVID people claimed everything violated HIPAA (masks, vaccine requirements, testing), but it only applies in a very narrow subset of patient/provider relationships.
People just wanna track stuff, they don't really look into is something HIPPA compliant or read the ToS. App store push, recommendation, word of mouth are what makes the app like this spread, not really details HIPPA compliance.
Now is a good time to bring up.
https://bloodyhealth.gitlab.io
A secure open source period tracking app.
Does anyone happen to know if Meta and Google have ever recovered these judgements from the app developers? All of the industry terms of service specifically forbid SDK licensees from sending sensitive personal data to the platforms, and they require the licensee to indemnify the platform against any judgement that arises from violating those terms. See Meta's statement on this verdict, which seems pretty reasonable to me. This 100% looks like the fault of the app developer:
“User privacy is important to Meta, which is why we do not want health or other sensitive information and why our terms prohibit developers from sending any.” Meta maintains that any transmission of sensitive health data is due to a failure to comply with its terms of use.
I mean this seems like an attempt at a get out of jail free card. If meta didnt want this info, why are they accepting and processing it?
It's just a generic key-value API.
I won't read this because it has the ridiculous word yapping in it. I wish people were better about not adopting the dumbest slang and spreading it so far and wide.
its crazy to me that Flo is used so widely, as its started by Russian men and their treatment of data has bee public for a while, it just hasnt spread fast enough. I know theres at least one other option called Calessa (http://Calessa.app)
It's really sad that we have all this technology but we can't trust any of it.
I think that kind of thinking is similar to the "both sides" stuff in politics. There's a meaningful difference in trustworthiness between different options.
For instance, if you need to track your period, the built in iOS apps are secure, especially if you're using advanced icloud encryption.
I'll make a period tracker for you for 5 bucks a month. You won't buy it, because it costs 5 bucks a month. So I'll have to find alternative monetisation strategies.
Doesn't flo charge ten dollars a month?
https://help.flo.health/hc/en-us/articles/4411278780564-What...
Why would me giving you 5 bucks a month assure you didn't also sell all of the data from the period tracker app? That's money you'd just be leaving on the table.
Nobody is going to trust your $5 a month service.
I don't actually see this as a problem, and instead it's a PSA everyone needs to internalize:
If you put data onto a networked device it may be sent to some place else.
If you don't want your data being shared:
Use a device that does not have any networking capability (both hardware and software wise)
Use a pen and paper, you can shred and destroy as you see fit.
If you're using an application on a mobile device with mobile data/wifi, the chances are, your data is being uploaded.
There are four open source period tracking apps on F-droid. I didn't do a full investigation of the source code, but unless your data is being uploaded outside the app (e.g. for backups), I feel safe assuming it will stay local only.
It sounds like the real solution to this is to be able to control permissions at an OS level for network per app, as you would be able to do if you had root access. I have no idea why regular Android distros don't allow you to do this, it seems like a really sensible thing to expose in app settings given the permissions model of Android.
Also: if you are not paying the service provider for the service, you are not their customer - you are their product.
If you do pay for a subscription, how can you be sure you're still not the product? What stops them from double dipping here?
If you're paying for a subscription, the company might sell your data. If you're using a commercial service for free, they are certainly selling your data.
Having said that, you're right to be suspicious of commercial services, even that you pay for. Someone can found a startup with a strong commitment to customer privacy and the best of intentions, but a few acquisitions or near bankruptcies later, those commitments will go out the window.
Relevant to this case, since they have a free version and premium one, they would probably just sell data from both sets of customers. It would be leaving money on the table otherwise, right?
The small chance that they might go out of their way to not sell premium users data doesn't seem worth much.
Flo isn't free though, you have to pay a weekly/yearly subscription to use it.
You can use a networked device, but make sure the data is stored somewhere you control (and own).
that is a really fucked up view
Less a f-u-view, more a f-u-world, the above is pragmatic advice about the actual IRL challenges of keeping data secure.
Further, a view that ignores many real world digital data risks faced by those considered to be useful targets; eg: compromised supply chains delivering "pre hacked" hardware with discreet wifi chips or hidden out of band comms, etc.