Privacy Tip #267 – Fertility Tracking App Settles with FTC

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Flo Health, Inc., (Flo) which offers a fertility-tracking app (Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker) used by more than 100 million customers, has agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to dismiss the FTC’s claims that Flo shared the health information of its users with data analytics firms despite promising users that it would keep the information private.

According to the FTC’s press release, the FTC alleged that “Flo promised to keep users’ health data private and only use it to provide the app’s services to users. In fact,…Flo disclosed health data from millions of users…to third parties that provided marketing and analytics services to the app, including…Factbook,…Google…and Flurry.”

The Complaint further alleged that Flo disclosed the user’s sensitive information, such as pregnancy, to third parties and did not limit how third parties could use the data.

The settlement requires Flo to review its privacy practices, obtain consent from its users before sharing their health information, prohibits it from misrepresenting the purposes for which it collects, uses and discloses user data, notify users of the unauthorized disclosure of the information, and have any third parties who received the information destroy it.

In addition, the FTC issued guidance on health apps, including tips on how to select and use health apps and reduce privacy risks. The guidance can be accessed here.

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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