Is It Time to Delete Your Period Tracker App?
If you’ve been on social media lately, you might have seen some debate about whether you should delete your period tracker app. While it’s not the first time this discourse has arisen (it took off after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022), the debate reignited with fierceness following Donald Trump’s recent, and disturbingly flippant, suggestion that states will likely start monitoring women’s pregnancies going forward.
The exchange he had with a reporter from Time magazine is worth repeating. “Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?” Trump was asked. “I think they might do that,” he replied, before going on to praise himself for appointing the conservative US Supreme Court judges who helped overthrow Roe v. Wade.
It should have thrown the news cycle into chaos. A presidential candidate—in 2024 no less—suggesting he had no issue with women’s private reproductive health matters being monitored by state governments, who could then use that information to prosecute women who either do not want to, or cannot, keep their pregnancies.
But these days it’s impossible to keep up with the myriad threats to women’s reproductive freedoms. Last week lawmakers in Louisiana proposed a bill to add the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol to the controlled and dangerous substances list, which could land women caught with them prison sentences of up to 10 years. Florida’s stringent six-week abortion ban has just gone into effect. The US Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments about whether Idaho’s abortion ban is so strict that it violates a federal law that requires emergency care for any patient (including abortions for women who are suffering severe health complications).
“So much of what’s built online is really designed to track people—and to collect as much data as possible.”
—Nicole Cushman, Charley managing director
Another case before the US Supreme Court is whether abortion medication pill access should be further restricted. In February this year Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that IVF embryos are children, which called access to IVF treatment into question and caused some providers to pause treatments. Kansas now requires abortion providers to share new-patient information with the state (including specific reasons as to why they’re terminating their pregnancies). The list goes on and on.
The U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Case Over Emergency Abortion Care in Washington, DC
But Trump’s latest pronouncement on abortion monitoring calls into question one of our most fundamental rights—privacy.
Ever since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there has been a growing concern among those who rely on a period tracker app to monitor their periods (a third of American women, according to a 2019 survey) about the safety of their private health information. There has also been a growing movement across social media urging women to delete period apps in order to prevent private medical information being used against them if they ever needed or wanted an abortion.
Anastasia Sanger, Glamour’s senior manager of social creative development, was one of many who decided to rethink their reliance on period tracker apps. “I started tracking when I switched from pills to an IUD in March 2022, right before the initial leak of Roe v. Wade being overturned,” Sanger says. “At first I used the iPhone health app for it. But when the abortion ruling officially went through, I saw a social media post about how it could lead to your period tracker info being used as evidence. Even though I live in a state where it’s pretty easy to get an abortion, I still found that thought uncomfortable.”
Sanger continues: “Shortly after that, Planned Parenthood launched Spot On, their own period tracker. Having my info with someone who is literally an abortion provider and was leading the charge against abortion restrictions made me feel more comfortable.”
Spot On is one of the period tracker apps that explicitly states that it “does not store your information or personal data.” Euki is another that promises zero data collection. But regardless of privacy promises, and even though Sanger feels safe using a privacy-focused app, there’s still a note of doubt for her about what could happen in a court of law: “I still don’t know for sure that they wouldn’t also have to turn over data.”
Now, with the former president announcing that he expects more aggressive and intrusive monitoring of pregnancies to become the norm, how we choose to monitor our own health—or even how we use the internet to search for information and answers to our health questions—is something we should all be increasingly thinking about.
“The greatest threat to privacy comes from people who they might confide in about their abortion then reporting them to authorities.”
—Nicole Cushman, Charley managing director
It’s an issue that Charley, an online abortion chatbot that provides abortion options in every state, is currently grappling with. Nicole Cushman, Charley’s managing director and associate in the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in NYC, says, “So much of what is built online is really designed to track people, and to collect as much data as possible.
“At Charley, we don’t collect any personally identifiable information. We only ask users’ locations—a zip code or city and state—and the date of their last menstrual period to help us provide accurate information on what options might be available closest to them. But beyond that, we are not using any tracking tools. We don’t share information with any third parties, and then all of the data, all of the conversations that Charlie has, are deleted from our system regularly. So even though we don’t know who the users are, we’re also making sure we’re not keeping a record of those conversations.”
Cushman acknowledges, though, that “there’s a lot of justifiable fear of surveillance and criminalization in the online space.” And “there are a lot of digital entities out there that haven’t taken the kinds of measures that we have at Charley and may be placing people at risk, whether they intend to or not.”
However, while there are some limited measures we can all take to protect our privacy online—private browsing, turning off ad personalization, limiting apps to ones that don’t store personal data, deleting period apps that do collect personal information—Cushman argues that often the greatest threat to our privacy can come from our own IRL interactions, even with our health providers.
“The fact that Trump would allow red states to track and prosecute women based on that information is nothing short of Big Brother bullshit.”
—Danielle Ann
“One thing that I want people to understand,” Cushman says, “when they might be considering seeking abortion care online, is that actually the greatest threat to their privacy comes from people who they might confide in about their abortion then reporting them to authorities.
“We have not seen evidence, yet, that there are government entities proactively monitoring people’s online communications and looking for evidence that they may have terminated a pregnancy. What is more likely to happen is that someone talks to either a trusted friend, or a relative, or even a health-care provider, and that person takes it upon themselves to report to law enforcement. And it’s only then that an investigation is opened, and their digital footprint, their communications online might become evidence in a criminal case.
“It’s really dismaying that so many health-care providers seem to be under the impression that it is their obligation, or their role, to report people’s abortion. We are definitely hearing stories of doctors, nurses, social workers, being the ones to file those reports.”
Danielle Ann, a political comedian and author who lives in Florida, recently went viral for a post in which she wrote: “I have to coach my daughter to NEVER give out her last period. This is where we are at in red states.”
“That post got a lot of attention and I think a lot of people jumped to a lot of conclusions,” she says. “My daughter is of course at an age where teaching her about her reproductive health and privacy is paramount. During sports physicals I noticed a spot on the form for her last cycle and we opted to leave it blank. Talking with her pediatrician we just requested it not be charted on her records.
“Living in Florida with Ron DeSantis and his wild government overreach, I am going to teach her to protect herself as a woman at all costs. The fact that Trump would allow red states to track and prosecute women based on that information is nothing short of Big Brother bullshit,” Ann says.
“Never in my life did I really think about the importance of medical privacy until Roe was overturned. As a 30-something who grew up in an age with sex education, Planned Parenthood as a resource, and Roe being the law of the land, I never thought I would see a day when my daughter had less rights as a woman,” Ann continues. “I find myself more concerned for my daughter’s future and health privacy than my own at this point.”
Ann herself does not use any form of period tracking apps “and never will,” and in fact took a much more dramatic decision after Trump was elected in 2016.
“In 2017, I opted for a tubal ligation as the baby years were behind me and I absolutely never wanted to do it again after several high-risk pregnancies. I saw the writing on the wall when McConnell blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination. I knew the Court we would get. And my absolute worst fears from the 2016 election cycle came true. I was lucky enough to have that [the tubal ligation] as an option,” Ann says.
While all this certainly paints a bleak picture—and access to abortion medication, safe abortions, and emergency abortions remains under threat across the country—there has been significant pushback even in some conservative-leaning states. Earlier this month, in May, Arizona’s Senate voted to repeal a draconian 1864 abortion law upheld by the state’s Supreme Court that banned abortion even in cases of rape and incest (with two Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with Democratic lawmakers). And even in Alabama, which has one of the most severe total abortion bans in the country and also recently ruled that IVF embryos should be considered children, Democrat Marilyn Lands won a surprise special-election victory after campaigning on abortion rights and access to IVF. But so much is still at stake.
As Charley cofounder and former president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards says, “Two things are true. One: People in states across this country are losing the right to make their own decisions about pregnancy—a dire situation that will get even worse if Donald Trump wins in November. And two: No matter where you live, you still have options for abortion care, including pills by mail, and there are resources that can help, while meeting the highest standards of online privacy and security.”
Originally Appeared on Glamour
