Have you considered your privacy rights when using birth control apps?

With a May 2024 update from the FTC on a pregnancy app that shared users’ sensitive information

Abstract from the article titled, "Before Using Birth Control Apps Consider Your Privacy" posted on Wired.com: "Natural Cycles’ privacy policy states that in using the app each user grants the company and any of its partners broad rights to “use, reproduce, distribute, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, communicate to the public, and otherwise utilize and exploit a user's anonymized information.”

Subjective: This article points out important considerations for people utilizing birth control and related apps that require the user to provide a significant amount of personal information. The somewhat galling aspect of which is that many users pay subscriptions for these services that in the end could make no small amount of money off this data.

Objective: Megan Moltini provides a balanced description of the pros and cons in using these types of apps. It is pointed out that many are not actively selling personal data at the time of the article and that the data they retrieve helps to provide a better product for its users. However, the potential for secondary use of the data for other unknown purposes is there.

Assessment: With statements such as this, users need to make educated choices about the apps that they choose to share their personal health information with: “Berglund says Natural Cycles’ only revenue stream at the moment is the app’s subscription service, and that selling customer data to third parties isn’t part of the company’s business plan. “We’ve never shared any data for financial purposes,” she says. But that may not always be the case. “I can’t say we’ll never share data, there’s no guarantees in life of what will happen.”

Plan: It has become very apparent that our personal data is being collected at great scale whether legally or illegally and it is important that we make active and educated choices about the health apps we use before automatically clicking the “Ok” or “I Agree” button when reviewing terms and conditions.

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How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data

A New York Times Personal Tech series article by Brian X. Chen

Retrieved By Health eConsultation 0 15594 Article rating: 5.0

In this article written by Brian X. Chen from the New York Times he discusses some of the potential ways in which mobile apps that you download to your phone may be collecting and using your personal data in ways you did not know.

One of the key takeaways is that there are ways in which to protect yourself and tools that can help you figure out which apps are collecting your data and how to remove their ability to do so.

Stay Private: How to Hide Your Webcam, Mute Your Mic, and Turn Off Notifications

An article from Zapier

Nathan E Botts 0 15518 Article rating: 5.0

One consideration as you gather and store more personal health information on your computer and devices is making sure that you are not inadvertently sharing this information (or some other aspect of your personal health) through your webcam or mic.

This article from Zapier outlines several different ways and some handy applications that can help you control this on your PC or MAC.

Determining the Value of Compromising Your Privacy

An article from Engadget

Nathan E Botts 0 10514 Article rating: No rating

This article from the Engadget web magazine discusses how your online searching behaviors might be monitored by different companies that you are unaware about. This data is likely used to build profiles that may impact the advertisements you see, credit ratings received, and other potential social network aspects as of yet identified. 

Sharing Sensitive Health Information: Protect Your Privacy and Improve Your Health

A guide from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Nathan E Botts 0 54100 Article rating: 5.0

This 2-page ONC published graphic novel (aka comic book) is a short guide that helps illustrate why protecting your health privacy is important and issues to consider when sharing sensitive health information.

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What is Health eDefense?

Health eDefense is the act of protecting your personal health information. This not only protects your privacy, security, and safety, but also protects the data of your family, friends, and others in your community.

The Health eDefense platform is dedicated to providing consumers with actionable information on how to protect their personal health information effectively from cyber threats. Health eDefense provides informational content and education related to cyber security, privacy and consent, security, and related topics and policies such as HIPAA and GDPR.

Cyber security is impacting our daily lives, and our personal and protected health information is a target for hackers and criminals looking to make money off of our personal data. Your personal health data will always be about your health, demographics, social, lifestyle, financial history, and other related details. Once taken, they cannot be taken back.

We think the best cybersecurity tool is education and awareness, and we hope to provide users with tools and insight to protect themselves and their data better.