Period tracking apps are working on ways to make their users as anonymous as possible, and Flo is one of them.
The period-tracking app recently announced it would be launching a new "anonymous mode" to address its privacy concerns and the recent controversial move of the Supreme Court to overturn the Roe v. Wade case.
The Supreme Court's ruling on the previously mentioned case allegedly removed American women's constitutional right to abortion, according to the BBC.
Flo Period-Tracking App 'Anonymous Mode'
Flo Mentioned in its official Twitter account that its users have the right to protect their data, and that its new upcoming feature, an "Anonymous mode," will remove the personal identity from their Flo account, allowing them be anonymous.
Flo's announcement didn't come as a surprise, however. According to Engadget, the app itself has a history of failing to protect users' privacy in 2019, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the app was sharing users' sensitive information with Facebook, Google, and other third-parties.
The information shared with these companies are said to include details about their menstrual cycles and if they were trying to get pregnant.
Although Flo denied it mishandled users' personal data, it did reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commision in 2021 about it, with the company describing the settlement as "not an admission of any wrongdoing."
Regardless of Flo's alleged "mishandling" of users' personal data, Flo erasing them sensitive data means that there would no data to be given to government offices to prove if someone may have had an abortion or was thinking of getting one, per Mashable.
With the overturn of the Roe v. Wade case, the Supreme Court effectively eliminated the consitutional right to abortion, meaning that women who want to have an abortion will to do so in secret or risk being arrested and prosecuted in court.
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Apps like Flo have a history of cooperation with criminal investigations in the past, usually in cases against child exploitation. Thus, the removal of users' sensitive data is important as half of the states in the US are expected to introduce new restrictions or bans after the overturn, and that 13 of them have outlawed abortion instantly.
Jackie Singh, a former senior cybersecurity staffer on the Biden presidential campaign wxplained to Mashable that every device with a period tracking app could be used as a tracking device due to people not using VPNs for their devices.
"While most people tend to leave our Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and location services on all the time for convenience, and rarely use a VPN or other privacy-protecting software, people who may be newly prosecuted as criminals no longer have the luxury of behaving as entirely free and lawful citizens," Signh said.
Roe V. Wade Case Summary
The Roe v. Wade legal case is a landmark case in which a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy was guaranteeed under the consitutional right to privacy, according to Britannica.
The case involves a "Jane Roe," a pseudonym to protect the plaintiff's identity, the late Norma McCorvey, and Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas county, Texas, where Roe lived.
The Supreme Court's ruling of 6-3 in favor of overturning the case sparked outage across the US, with President Biden calling the act "a tragic error."
The Supreme Court overturned the case due to the court upholding a Mississipi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, per Reuters.
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