Democrats want the data collected by menstrual cycle tracking apps, at the heart of significant privacy criticism, to be protected by law.
The announcement was made by Democratic Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Other measures have been put forward to “protect the health and safety of American women”, such as ensuring the constitutional right to travel freely throughout the United States and codifying Roe v. wade at the federal level.
Invitations to uninstall menstrual cycle tracking apps flooded social media as soon as news of the invalidation of Roe v. wade Friday. Many fear that data, which may include users’ ovulation periods and pregnancy start and end dates, could be sold to the government.
The stakes are all the more important in states like Louisiana, where abortion is on the way to being considered a homicide.
“The danger is significant,” notes Sébastien Gambs, professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). “These apps are often free apps. So the companies will offer the application to people for free, but also develop and resell the data afterwards, without necessarily being very clear about their business model,” he adds.
No guaranteed security
The German application Clue, which is used monthly, according to its website, to 12 million users, quickly wanted to reassure its “American community”. Clue is subject to European laws, “which have extremely strong guarantees”, confirms Mr. Gambs.
But, like most mobile applications, menstrual cycle monitoring programs have other security flaws, such as geolocation, non-encryption of data, or even programming with codes found in bookstores, for lack of of means.
Thus, even if the law proposed by Nancy Pelosi were adopted, Mr. Gambs believes that it would be “not easy to guarantee complete security”.
In 2017, an advertising firm in Massachusetts had, by geolocating phones close to an abortion clinic, sent 2.4 million messages aimed at dissuading them from carrying out the medical act.
So, in a state where abortion is now illegal, “it’s not advertising that these young Americans will receive, it’s legal proceedings,” laments the professor. “What I would almost advise a woman who wants to go to an abortion clinic in another state is to leave her phone at home. »