As many as 50 million individuals have utilized a period or cycle tracking app (CTA), often unaware that the personal information entered can be sold to third-party companies for advertising and research purposes.

Now experts have warned that data could be dangerous in the wrong hands and Australian women “have a right to be angry” about it, one expert says.

These apps, which monitor menstrual cycles and fertility, constitute over half of the thriving ‘femtech’ market, projected to exceed US$60 billion (AU$92.4 billion) by 2027.

“I do think that people have a right to be annoyed by this, they have a right to be angry about it, and we have a right to demand better.”

Katharine Kemp, an Associate Professor from the University of NSW’s Law and Justice faculty who conducted the study, indicated that this could lead to the exploitation of users when their data is sold to other parties.

But Ford revealed that’s nothing new in the digital age.

“When we engage with any app, a social media app, even some photo apps, they all have the same relationship with private companies and selling data,” she said.

Apps are required to disclose if they share user data with third parties but those disclosures are often buried in long terms and conditions agreements, which can make it hard for users to understand how their personal data may be used.

While many Australians are willing to take that risk when it comes to their public accounts on social media apps, the data they put into a CTA is more sensitive and personal.

It can feel like more of a risk to use these apps knowing that private information may be sold to third parties who can use it for targeted advertising (such as ads for baby clothes when a person falls pregnant), among other things.

“They market themselves as medical tools, some even claiming to help diagnose conditions, but are not regulated or held to medical device standards, risking harm to women,” Copp said.

It doesn’t help that many CTAs employ an ‘all or nothing’ data privacy agreement wherein users must agree to having their data shared in order to use the app.

“You either say yes or you don’t get to use it,” Ford said.

“It’s unacceptable and I just think that regulators have more of a responsibility here.”

The Cambridge report made six recommendations to mitigate risks posed by CTAs selling user data to third parties and “reframe reproductive care as vital healthcare”.

They included incentivising research on menstrual and reproductive health, raising awareness and digital literacy around period tracking, and public health bodies developing their own CTAs as an alternative to commercial apps.

The report also called for stricter regulation of CTA data as sensitive health information, improving how CTAs manage and protect user data, and making them more transparent.

“We need health providers who we trust to have their own apps, and we need to be able to put the decision back to the people using the apps, and make it very clear about what’s involved,” Ford said.

“There should also be an opportunity to not be part of data sharing.”

Australians deserve stronger protections around these apps instead of expecting individual women to research the data privacy policies of every CTA on the market to find the least risky option.

Ford wants stricter regulations that would force CTAs and other apps to be more transparent about how user data is used and urges Australians to contact their elected officials to take action on the issue.

Copp encouraged Australians to “think carefully about the types of data they would be happy to have shared or enter the bare minimum of data required to give basic cycle information, whilst keeping in mind this can still be shared and profited off”.