With over a 100 million users, Flo, a period tracking application has had to make settlements with the Federal Trade Commission, USA after multiple allegations of misusing private health data. The allegation mentioned that this data was shared with Facebook and Google without the consent of Flo’s users.
The complaint made by FTC said that Flo shared this private data, including dates of menstruation cycles and connected plans of contraception or pregnancy, with companies that study the latter’s analytics and marketing trends. This, the claim was, despite ensuring their users that Flo would keep all health data secure and private.
In this settlement with the FTC, the period tracking app has to inform their users as to how this sensitive data may have been used, and also ask for their permission before sharing any such data further on. The company also has to be part of an independent audit of its privacy policies.
Although the company was said to be “glad to have reached an agreement and resolved the matter”, it did not admit to any of the allegations that were made against it.