Across Women's Lives

If you're trying to get pregnant, you may have turned to an ovulation- or period-tracking app for help. Millions of women around the world use them for a variety of reasons. But what happens to the highly personal data people enter in these apps? In some cases, it gets fed to third parties — including Facebook. That's according to a Buzzfeed News investigation and a new report by the UK-based advocacy group Privacy International, which looked at apps being used in different parts of the world.The apps monitored in the study included Maya by Plackal Tech, MIA Fem by Mobapp Development Limited, and Mi Calendario Menstrual by Grupo Familia (an app targeting users in Latin America). They also looked at My Period Tracker by Linchpin Health, Period Tracker & Ovulation Calculator by Pinkbird, and Period Tracker by GP International LLC.The World's Marco Werman spoke with Eva Blum-Dumontet, the researcher who led the study on the period-tracking apps at Privacy International.  Marco Werman: What are some of the apps t