Women's health is big business. There are a staggering number of applications for Android to help people keep track of their monthly cycle, know when they may be fertile, or track the status of their pregnancy. These apps entice the user to input the most intimate details of their lives, such as their mood, sexual activity, physical activity, physical symptoms, height, weight, and more. But how private are these apps, and how secure are they really? After all, if an app has such intimate details about our private lives it would make sense to ensure that it is not sharing those details with anyone such as another company or an abusive partner/parent. To this end EFF and Journalist Kashmir Hill have taken a look at some of the privacy and security properties of over a dozen different fertility and pregnancy tracking apps. Through our research we have uncovered several privacy issues in many of the applications as well as some notable security flaws as well as a couple of interesting security features.
Cooperq is a security researcher and programmer at EFF. He has worked on projects such as Privacy Badger, Canary Watch, Ethersheet, and analysis of state sponsored malware. He has also performed security trainings for activists, non profit workers and ordinary folks around the world. He previously worked building websites for non-profits, such as Greenpeace, Adbusters, and the Chelsea Manning Support Network. He also was a co-founder of the Hackbloc hacktivist collective. In his spare time he enjoys playing music and participating in street protests. @cooperq
Kashmir Hill is a journalist who writes about privacy and security. She is a senior reporter at Gizmodo Media and has previously written for Fusion, Forbes Magazine and Above The Law. @kashhill