On May 2, a draft opinion of the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade—thus permitting states to outlaw abortion—was leaked. Social media immediately filled with posts about the impact of this new reality. These concerns included the safety of our digital data.
Users who had downloaded period-tracking apps on their phones were urged to delete them. The most popular of these apps—Flo, based in the UK, and Clue, created in Berlin—are free to download and track not only your next period but also your most fertile days of the month. In fact, depending on the information entered, the apps can predict the intensity of your menstrual flow, even your specific PMS symptoms. The fear is that such apps can also reveal when you’ve missed a period—effectively pointing to a possible pregnancy. In a post-Roe world, app users were worried their personal cycle information could be used to prosecute them. This fear is based in fact. Even before Roe was overturned, browser history was vulnerable to investigation. When, in 2017, a Mississippi woman experienced an almost-full-term stillbirth at home, prosecutors used the search history on her phone as part of their pregnancy termination case against her—and a grand jury indicted her for second-degree murder. (The case was dropped three years later.)
