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. “
Wow, my girlfriend uses this. Time to get her a FOSS-grown solution. Fuck the corpos!
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.
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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 😕): https://pluja.github.io/awesome-privacy/#menstrual-cycle-trackers
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.~~https://github.com/cameroncros/PrivatePeriodTracker~~
~~https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cross.privateperiodtracker~~
Drip looks better for most people though. But they should add encryption if they dont already have it.Use drip.
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
Huh, thats good. I scanned their website for mentions of encryption and didnt find it.
Mine isnt on fdroid, wasnt worth the effort. May as well remove from Google Play as well tbh, Drips seems all round a better option.
Yep it was a struggle to find. I checked website, issues and then finally made a last attempt at the change logs. It should be advertised more for that added piece of mind.
I didnt mean to shoot your app down by the way, in case it came across that way. Ive never used these apps
Thanks for developing your version though. People like you make this community what it is :)
I’ve never used my app either, I lack the prerequisites :D I wrote it for my partner last time there was a thing about US cops going after the data. But I dont maintain it, so drips is the better option in general.
When drips gets caught selling data I’ll revive my app :D
I remember back in my teenage days, I tried to track some menstruations. It didn’t end well.
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 TOU/EULA 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?
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 TOU/EULA agreement.
It’s not a matter of something being different or not. It’s no matter what, it’s illegal. Law trumps any TOU/EULA.
So what are they doing that illegal that other apps aren’t doing??
I really don’t know how to be any more clear with this question.
So what are they doing that illegal that other apps aren’t doing??
I really don’t know how to be any more clear with this question.
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.”
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they still ran foul of laws that cannot be waived by any sort of TOU/EULA agreement.
