I Thought My Health App Was Between Me and My Phone

There’s a moment most of us have probably had.

We download an app that promises to help us understand our body.

Maybe it tracks our period, menopause symptoms, fertility, sleep, moods, medications, weight, or those strange little aches we swear we’ll remember to mention at our next doctor’s appointment.

The app starts asking questions.

When was your last period?

Are you sexually active?

Are you trying to get pregnant?

How often are you having hot flashes?

What medications are you taking?

How have you been feeling emotionally?

And we answer.

I know I have.

I didn’t stop and think of those answers as valuable personal information.

It wasn’t asking for my Social Security number or my bank account password.

I wasn’t handing over a credit card.

I was entering a few symptoms into an app that looked helpful, calm, and professional.

What could it hurt?

That was honestly how I looked at it.

But lately, I’ve been asking myself a different question.

Why does this app need to know all of that?

I think many of us see our phones as personal spaces.

We keep our pictures there.

We have private conversations there.

We look up things we may not feel comfortable saying out loud.

We track changes in our bodies that no one else may know about.

So, when we type something into a health app, it can feel like we’re placing it inside a private little notebook.

I thought I was telling the app.

I didn’t realize I might also be telling advertising companies, tracking companies, data companies, or other businesses I had never heard of.

An examination of 45 popular women’s health apps found that some collected sensitive personal and medical information, requested permissions that could create privacy risks, and included numerous outside tracking tools.

The apps weren’t all identical, and the findings don’t mean every health app misuses our information.

But they do show that a health app can collect much more than we may realize while we’re tapping through those innocent looking questions.

That bothered me.

Not because I believe every app is secretly plotting against us.

Some permissions have a reasonable purpose.

A fitness app may need access to our movement.

A telehealth app may need our camera and microphone for an appointment.

A pharmacy app may need our location to find the nearest store.

But sometimes the amount of access being requested doesn’t seem to match what the app actually does.

And I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to notice that.

Women’s health apps often know how to make us feel comfortable.

They use soft colors.

Gentle words.

Little flowers, moons, hearts, and reassuring reminders.

They talk to us like they’re looking after us.

But a comforting design doesn’t tell us how the company behind the app makes its money.

Some apps earn money through subscriptions.

Some show advertisements.

Some use outside companies to study how we use the app.

Some may share certain information for advertising, business analysis, or other purposes described somewhere inside a privacy policy most of us don’t have the time or patience to read.

And let’s be honest about those privacy policies.

They can feel like they were written for a lawyer who had three cups of coffee and something to prove.

We’re expected to read page after page of confusing wording before using a tool that may have taken us thirty seconds to download.

Then we press “agree” because we need the app, we’re tired, and dinner still needs to be figured out.

That may technically count as consent.

But it doesn’t always feel like a real choice.

I used to think personal information was only dangerous when it included something obvious, like my Social Security number, banking details, or full legal identity.

I’m realizing that information doesn’t need to include all of that to tell a detailed story about us.

A period tracker may know when our cycle is late.

A fertility app may know we’re trying to become pregnant.

A menopause app may know our age range, sleep patterns, moods, and symptoms.

A symptom tracker may know what medical condition we’re worried about before we’ve even told our family.

Location information can reveal where we go, how often we go there, and how long we stay.

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against data companies over allegations involving precise location information that could be used to trace visits to sensitive places, including reproductive health clinics, medical facilities, and places of worship.

That isn’t the same as knowing what city we live in.

That’s knowing where we were.

And when.

I don’t want to frighten us into believing someone is personally watching every move we make.

Most of this information is handled by computer systems and sorted into groups for advertising, business decisions, or analysis.

But being placed into a group doesn’t make the information meaningless.

A business may decide we’re interested in pregnancy products, weight loss services, menopause treatments, mental health support, or certain medications based on what we search, enter, click, or spend time reading.

We may see an advertisement and think it appeared by coincidence.

Sometimes it didn’t.

I think many of us hear the words “health app” and assume our information must be protected the same way information in a doctor’s office is protected.

That isn’t always true.

Whether federal health privacy rules apply can depend on who operates the app, what service it provides, and whether it is connected to a health care provider or another covered business.

Government guidance for health app companies makes it clear that different apps may fall under different privacy and consumer protection laws.

So, an app knowing about our health doesn’t automatically make it our doctor.

That distinction matters.

We may share something with an app because it feels medical and private, even though the company handling that information may operate more like a technology or advertising business.

The screen may look like a health tool.

The business behind it may work very differently.

I don’t want this conversation to become another reason for women to blame ourselves.

We already carry enough responsibility for things we were never fully told.

We use these apps because they can be helpful.

They can help us notice patterns, remember symptoms, prepare for appointments, understand changes in our bodies, or feel less confused during times when our health seems to be changing by the week.

Many women use them because getting an appointment isn’t always easy.

Sometimes an app is the only tool available at two in the morning when we’re awake, uncomfortable, and wondering whether what we’re feeling is normal.

The problem isn’t that we’re foolish for using technology.

The problem is that we’re asked to make privacy decisions without being given clear information in words we can understand.

We shouldn’t need a law degree to find out who receives information about our period.

We shouldn’t need to understand computer programming before tracking a hot flash.

And we shouldn’t have to choose between getting help and keeping every part of our life private.

I’ve spent a lot of time learning that boundaries aren’t about shutting everyone out.

They’re about deciding who gets access to us, how much access they receive, and whether that access has been earned.

I’m beginning to see that the same truth belongs here.

Not every app needs access to my location.

Not every health tool needs my contacts, photos, camera, or microphone.

Not every question deserves an automatic answer just because it appears on my screen.

Before I enter something now, I try to pause.

Does this app truly need this information to give me the service I downloaded it for?

I may still decide to answer.

I may still choose convenience.

I may decide that the benefit of an app is worth sharing certain information.

But I want that to be a decision, not a habit. 

One of the hardest parts of this is that we may not know everywhere our information has traveled.

Data brokers collect information from different sources and combine it into profiles.

Trying to find every company that may hold our information can be difficult because many of us have never even heard their names.

Most of us don’t have hours to investigate every company connected to every app.

That doesn’t mean we don’t care.

It means the system has made caring difficult.

I’m not deleting everything from my phone and returning to a paper calendar taped inside a kitchen cabinet.

Although some days, that little paper calendar starts looking pretty peaceful.

I’m still going to use technology.

I’m still going to download tools that make life easier.

But I no longer want to assume that every app is safe just because it’s available, popular, or covered in soothing shades of pink.

I want to be more careful about where I put my personal information.

I want to notice what an app is asking to access.

I want to question why it needs something before I hand it over.

That isn’t fear.

It’s attention.

The information we enter may look like a few dates, symptoms, moods, or ordinary details.

Together, those details can tell a much bigger story.

And that story belongs to us before it belongs to any app, advertiser, tracker, or business.

I may still choose to share part of it.

I just want to know that I’m the one making that choice.

#EvolvingWomanhood

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