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Fertility apps collect unnecessary personal data and could sell it to third parties.

Updated: Oct 25, 2023

Four of Australia’s top 12 fertility apps are unnecessarily collecting highly sensitive information and have left the door open to selling the data to other companies, a study by University of New South Wales law researcher Dr Katharine Kemp and consumer group Choice has found.


Woman looking at phone ap

BabyCenter: allowed the company to collect information about its users through other companies and data brokers, as well as sell personal data to other companies or provide the data to companies advertising in the app


Glow Fertility, Nurture and Eve apps: “collect further information” about users from other companies, which are only described as third-party sources. The app also has tracking technologies.


The Ovia Fertility and Pregnancy apps: collect extensive data not required for the app, including diseases, financial situation, housing, safety and education level. They also specify they can share location and activity in the app with advertisers.


The content of this article has been reproduced from an article by Josh Taylor at the Guardian.


Details of this article can be viewed by following this link: READ THE ARTICLE


So....what is the best app for me to use ??

While Choice said it was not perfect, the survey found the Natural Cycles app was the best of those examined, providing clear and concise privacy summaries, allowing users to opt out of data being used for research, not sharing data, and allowing users to request for their data to be deleted.





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