Court Finds Meta* Guilty of Illegally Collecting Flo Health Users' Data

Flo Health is an international women's health tracking app available in over 20 languages. It was founded in 2015 by Belarusian entrepreneurs Dmitry and Yuri Gursky. The developers position the service as a "science-based" platform, claim to actively collaborate with medical experts, and claim to comply with privacy standards. The app's description in online download stores states that the project's audience is 422 million women.

The lawsuit stems from a 2019 investigation by The Wall Street Journal that found Flo Health shared the personal data of millions of users with third parties, including Meta, Google, AppsFlyer, and analytics platform Flurry. Despite Flo Health’s public assurances of data protection, the information users entered into the app was shared for advertising and analytics purposes.

The court found that Meta “intentionally eavesdropped or recorded” users’ interactions with the app through digital means without legal grounds to do so. The case had previously reached out-of-court settlements with Google and Flo Health, but Meta declined to settle out of court.

According to court documents, by the end of 2020, Flo Health had 150 million female users. In its privacy policy, the company emphasized that it strives to maintain user trust. However, in 2021, the US Federal Trade Commission conducted an investigation, finding violations in the handling of personal information. As a result, Flo Health entered into a settlement agreement with the regulator, committing to undergo an independent review of its privacy policy and to stop misleading users about the processing of their data.

The issue of women’s health data protection has become more acute in the United States since the country’s Supreme Court struck down the constitutional guarantee of abortion rights in 2022. That sparked protests, increased demand for telemedicine, and heightened concerns about how data from cycle-tracking apps might be used. Many services have rushed to implement anonymous modes, and users have been deleting apps en masse for fear of prosecution.

* Meta is recognized as an extremist organization and is banned in Russia