‘First’ femtech app to protect user data from governments emerges from stealth
Menotracker has emerged from stealth, claiming its data privacy tech prevents governments accessing users’ menopause data.
The company has teamed up with privacy technology firm ConsentKeys to create what it calls the first women’s health app that will never store users’ personal data.
The app is now available in 177 countries and 41 languages, offering free access to AI-powered symptom analysis and what it describes as medical-grade educational content.
Sonja Rincón, chief executive and founder of Menotracker, said: “Women tracking intimate symptoms like incontinence, vaginal dryness, or mental health changes need absolute confidence that their data cannot be accessed by employers, insurance companies, or governments.
“This partnership means we’ve designed our system so that we literally cannot compromise user privacy – because we don’t have access to real user information ourselves.”
The launch comes as period tracking app Flo Health and its partners Google and Meta recently settled for US$56m after being found liable for sharing users’ menstrual and sexual health data without consent.
Prosecutors in several US states have used period tracking data, search histories and text messages as evidence in abortion-related criminal cases.
In the US, companies can legally collect, store and sell women’s health data to data brokers, who then make it available to advertisers, insurance companies, employers and law enforcement.
Period tracking apps are not covered by HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which protects medical records, and data brokers can sell location information about anyone who visits an abortion clinic to anyone with a credit card.
Through ConsentKeys’ authentication system, users are assigned pseudonymous identities with unique credentials for the platform, linking accounts to masked identities rather than real names. Even in the event of a data breach, stolen information would contain only dummy data that cannot be traced to real individuals.
Menotracker itself cannot access users’ true identities, which the company says makes it technically impossible to sell, share or be compelled to hand over personal health information to third parties.
Kris Constable, founder of ConsentKeys, said the real user information is encrypted and distributed across multiple jurisdictions in a way that would require years of legal process for anyone, including governments, to attempt to access.
He said: “We’ve coined the phrase ‘privacy is consent’ because women deserve the opportunity to choose how their information is being used, something that’s rarely offered in the tech world.”
Developed in partnership with over 200 perimenopausal women, those in the transition to menopause, and certified menopause specialists, Menotracker captures symptoms from hot flushes and night sweats to word-finding difficulty and burning mouth sensation, a painful burning feeling in the mouth.
The platform includes medically reviewed content, community support, visual symptom summaries and doctor-ready reports.
