The habit is now well anchored.
Women, and especially the youngest, are now very likely to have downloaded an app to track their menstrual cycle.
“I have
Flo
.
It is very simple, playful and includes a lot of advice.
I can record the cramps I have there.
I learned a lot about the rules there.
My girlfriends are more on
Clue
.
In any case, we all have this tool,” confirms Anna, 16, a high school student in Paris.
In the United States, on the other hand, these apps are currently considered as potential snitches and worry women.
Read alsoRight to abortion: five minutes to understand its questioning in the United States
A possible use of personal data which worries
After the leak of a draft of the Supreme Court considering banning the right to abortion,
the tracking of women who wish to have a voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) is far from being a science fiction scenario.
What alarms?
The possible use of personal data extracted from applications to track their menstrual cycle.
By entering information such as the duration and date of their last period, women can know when they will have their next period or calculate their ovulation period.
But the application, which analyzes the data, can also know if its user is pregnant.
And in fact, if it is no longer.
As the debate intensifies in the United States on the right to abortion, the famous Canadian writer is alarmed to see the country become a theocratic dictatorship, as she predicted in "The Scarlet Handmaid", his dystopian masterpiece published in 1985. pic.twitter.com/dUnLUcqHRY
— Danny Lannister 🇺🇦 (@quentinlebars) May 20, 2022
Indeed, the personal data entered in these applications are not subject to the HIPAA law which regulates the sharing of private health information in the United States.
Apps therefore have every opportunity to sell the data to other users, whether individuals, companies or law enforcement in the context of an investigation.
"The data collected could be used either to identify women who have abortions, or as proof that a woman has had recourse to abortion in a future where it is criminalized", alert also on the site TechCrunch , Eva Galperin, member of the NGO Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Panic on social media
Since the plan to quash the landmark Roe v.
Wade (1973) who guarantees access to abortion until the threshold of viability, ie around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy, is causing panic on social networks.
Because if this cancellation is indeed retained in July, the United States will return to the situation in force before 1973, where each State had jurisdiction to prohibit or authorize abortion.
Read alsoAbortion in the United States: the governor of Oklahoma signs one of the most restrictive laws
Internet users are thus warning against menstrual tracking applications that could serve the most conservative authorities.
"If you're using an online period tracker or tracking your cycles through your phone, quit it and delete your data.
Now,” tweeted author, activist, and founder of the Gaia Project for Women's Leadership, Elizabeth C. McLaughlin.
Advice taken by Heather, a 22-year-old literature student in the very conservative state of Wyoming.
The Guttmacher Research Institute estimates that there are 22 states where an abortion ban would be
"certain",
including this last one.
“What is happening in my country is a disgrace.
It's a real step back, I didn't think I had to mobilize, as my elders did, for the right to abortion.
It's a shock, ”says the young woman.
A feminist activist, who had an abortion at the age of 19 in the neighboring state of Colorado, she eliminated her menstrual cycle monitoring app from her smartphone.
“The enemy can also hide there”
“Yes I deleted it because the enemy can also hide there.
And I'm not the only one around me to have done it.
This is the state of paranoia in which we are kept today!
It's very serious, ”insists Heather.
What does this digital challenge inspire in French associations?
“The law is not the same on data protection.
We therefore do not have this suspicion as in the United States, ”says Maud Leblon, new president of Elementary Rules who campaigns, in particular, against menstrual precariousness.
“These apps that allow you to have a better knowledge of your body, to lift the taboo of periods, which are full of advice are rather tools that we encourage.
But you can just as easily write down information about your menstrual cycle on paper, ”adds the manager.
If there is reflection on the apps, it is mainly for scientific use.
“We have very little information about the rules.
However, through this mass of data we could learn much more... with the authorization of the users of course", specifies Maud Leblon, whose association precisely proposes the first edition of its festival "Sang Gêne" approaching all the subjects around menstruation, Friday 27, Saturday 28 (international menstrual hygiene day) and Sunday 29 May in Paris.