Software, diagnostics or products and services that use technology to support women’s health. This could include mobile applications for tracking fertility or menstrual periods, for example.
Deeper dive
With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, some people have become concerned about the safety or privacy of using femtech. Period-tracking apps do not fall under federal privacy protections like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), noted in an article by the Rewire News Group. These apps can share any data they collect, provided they state this in their privacy disclosures. Law enforcement also could get access to data from data brokers downstream. Some apps allow users to store data on their phones rather than in the cloud, which could be safer, but won’t necessarily protect them in the face of a search warrant, Wired magazine reported.
Nearly half of 20 popular period-tracking apps used or shared data for third-party advertising, according to an analysis by cybersecurity and virtual private network company Surfshark, reported in Mobihealthnews. Deleting tracking apps alone does not necessarily remove the information recorded. Users also must contact the companies and request that their already-recorded data be deleted.