The Mozilla foundation works to ensure that the internet remains a public resource open and accessible to all. In its most recent report, a handful of popular reproductive health apps and wearable devices were investigated for privacy and security practices. It found that 18 out 25 of those apps received a *privacy not included warning label, sounding alarm bells on personal and sensitive health information. Jen Caltrider, lead of *Privacy Not Included at Mozilla, joined Cheddar News to discuss.

Cheddar's News Wrap

How Safe Are Your Reproductive Apps and Devices?

Welcome Welcome everyone to Cheddars news wrap. The Mozilla foundation works to ensure that the internet remains a public resource open and accessible to all. And in its most recent report, a handful of popular reproductive health apps and wearable devices were investigated for privacy and security practices. It found that 18 out 25 of those apps received a privacy not included warning label sounding alarm bells on personal and sensitive health information. Joining me now to discuss is jen called writer lead of privacy not included at Mozilla. Welcome to the show. Now jen before we dive into this report explain what this warning label means first. Well we think that any product that we put a warning label on is something that consumers should think twice about. Um, and we apply pretty strict standards to apply that label because we recognize that it's a dire warning. So you know, we look at things like does the product use encryption, Does it require strong password? Doesn't have a privacy policy. Does it protect your data? Does it have a track record of protecting you and respecting your privacy And so things that don't meet our criteria. Get the warning label and we think consumers should probably stay away from those products. Yeah. And as consumers should definitely do more research to be included, jen can you break down the findings of this report what it means for users who may rely on some or many of these apps. Yeah. So of the 20 apps that we reviewed, we also took a look back at five wearables but I'll focus on the apps because they're kind of more important right at the moment following um the news of the summer. But uh you know, 18 of the 20 apps that we looked at and we looked at 10 fertility apps and 10 pregnancy apps 18 I got our warning label which is pretty scary. Um and they got our warning labels for a variety of reasons. Um at least eight of the apps didn't require strong passwords, so we were able to use a password of 11 for some of the some of the apps and that's pretty weak security. A number of them collect a lot of personal health information and some of these companies talk about potentially selling the information, definitely sharing the information with a whole lot of third parties for things like targeted interest, interest based advertising, things that consumers might not want some of their personal data um used for. And so that raises alarms for us. And you know, just kind of going back to the um the idea that these apps collect a whole lot of personal information, health apps, you know, are a growing segment of what we used these days and they collect a lot of information. And we're seeing, you know, there was one app maker that made an egg timer and a period record and those, both, both those apps had the same privacy policy even though they collect vastly different data on their users. And so this was a big flag for us that that we were worried about. And then we did dug into this time really looking at how companies say they can share data with law enforcement. And what we found was very vague statements about um, you know, how companies might give up your personal information to law enforcement if they come asking for it. And that raises a flag for us in our current environment too. I'm so glad you mentioned the aspect of law enforcement. Why is this research so concerning? Especially in the post roll landscape? And what does this all have to do with abortion rights? Well, in the post rural landscape now that abortion can be made illegal is illegal in a number of states across the United States. If you think about it, you know, back 50 plus years ago when abortion was illegal before the internet didn't exist. Um, it does now. And that means everything we do is track the information you put into these reproductive health apps about when your period is if you're pregnant, if you're no longer pregnant, um, is tracked. And it's and it's kept by companies and companies can, you know, can give that to law enforcement and law enforcement comes knocking and there's a lot of gray area around this now that we're finding companies are starting to grapple with. We found one company over to have a very clear policy about how they might share data with law enforcement if they were asking for it. Um and we, and we found another company clue that was based in in Germany that promoted the fact that, you know, german laws prevent us law enforcement for having much reach on their data collection. So you're seeing a wide variety of how companies are approaching this. Unfortunately, we found too many companies that hadn't been thinking this through. And, and that raises concerns if if law enforcement wants to access this data for, you know, purposes that, you know, could be questionable. You know, people are just seeking reproductive health access and their data is being used to harass them, arrest them, potentially prosecute them. It's a very scary world we're entering right now. And I want to raise some flags. So people are aware that we need to be more cautious when it comes to privacy, jen, I would love to go through some of these individual apps on the list. We had a graphic on a moment ago which surprised you the most. Give us some specific examples of where some of the apps went wrong. Uh, well, one of the apps, um that that went wrong in a big way is, is one that just didn't have a privacy policy. We could find no privacy policy at all for the app. Um, you know, anywhere on the internet and that's a big flat. If you can't find a privacy policy for an app, please don't use the app ever. It doesn't matter what kind of happened is it shows that the company doesn't care about privacy. Um And then we had a number of apps that you know, we assign privacy games on how, how a company can use data, how users can control the data if a company has a bad known track record. And we had a few apps that earned all the things that we assign on that and that's and that's bad. And some of those apps were some of the more popular ones that have hundreds of millions of downloads between the two app stores and so that's that's a concern and that's something that you know, I hope people will, you know take a look at our research and make decisions about what to use. Um One of the pleasant surprises that we had was Yuki which was a really good at, it was a privacy focused app that fertility tracking app that's designed with privacy from the ground up to protect users from having that access and that and that was a pleasant surprise. What I like is Moselle also has a best of category spotlighting the products and companies that are getting privacy and security right, tell us about those john well I just kind of mentioned the one the best, the one we had one best of um and that was Yuki um E U. K i if users are out there looking to find out which one that was and and we wanted to really call that one out for a couple of reasons. It does some good things. First off every all the day that you entered is stored locally on your device. Um with that up so nothing goes out to a company is stored. Um and where they have control over things are stored where you have control over it. But I also recognize with users that you're sometimes the weakest link and so anybody can access your device and see that information if you're not careful. So Yuki has the past though of course that that you can set up. And it also has a feature where if you're forced to give up that pass code two, someone that you don't want to have access to your information. You can use a dummy passed out and it will show false information. And so that was an interesting app that have really thought through some of the scenarios that people that are seeking reproductive health care in places where it's it's no longer legal or safe um might face. And so we really appreciated Yuki and wanted to call them out for doing a good job gen cult writer lead of privacy not included in Mozilla. I love that. We're talking about this jen we hope you come back soon to discuss some more. Thank you so much for your time