Period tracker app users seek class certification in data-sharing lawsuit

(Feb. 04, 2021)

Flo, the app that tracks women’s menstrual cycles, is accused of selling its users’ personal details in a class action lawsuit filed in a California court this week.

Lead plaintiff Tesha Gamino says as soon as a user opens the app, Flo begins collecting private information including users’ sexual activities, gender, birthday, period dates, and location. Flo allegedly profits off this information by using it for marketing. 

“Targeted advertising is driven by users’ personal data and employs sophisticated algorithms that interpret the personal data to determine the most effective advertising for individual users,” the class action lawsuit states. 

Flo shares the intimate information of its hundreds of millions of users to internet giants like Google and Facebook, Gamino claims. The app has even shared women’s pregnancy intentions to reportedly be used as unique advertising identifiers.

“The gravity of these data privacy violations cannot be overstated. In fact, a growing and insidious practice is to collect unique data from consumers to
build a profile which is used to allow third parties and data brokers to follow users’ activities across their devices with essentially no limit,” the lawsuit states.

This isn’t the first time Flo’s data privacy practices have been called into question. Just last month the company reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations it shared users’ health information with data analytic providers. The independent agency took issue with the fact that Flo promised its users that it would protect their data and keep it private, yet did the exact opposite.

“Besides breaking promises to Flo App users, Respondent’s disclosures violated several of the third parties’ own terms of service or use,” the FTC complaint states.

The app apparently didn’t stop sharing its users’ health information until the Wall Street Journal reported on it in February of 2019, the FTC notes in its complaint adding that Flo stopped sharing with Facebook the very next day.

As part of Flo’s settlement with the FTC, the app must get its users’ permission before sharing their intimate details and will need to get an independent review of its privacy practices.

This is the second class action lawsuit to be filed in California accusing the app of sharing users’ health information without their permission. Last week lead plaintiff Erica Frasco filed a lawsuit asserting that she would have never downloaded the app had she known Flo would just share and sell her intimate information to third parties.

Frasco accuses the app of violating users’ privacy rights and federal law. She’s demanding statutory damages of no less than $1,000 per person, among other things.

Top Class Actions will update this news article as more information becomes available. Click on the “Follow Article” button at the top of this page to get the latest updates on the Flo data collection class action lawsuit by using your free Top Class Actions account.

Tesha Gamino is represented by the Law Offices of Ronald A. Marron APLC.

The Flo Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Tesha Gamino v. Flo Health Inc, Case No: 5:21-cv-00198, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Erica Frasco is represented by Wagstaffe, Von LoeWenfeldt, Busch & Radwick LLP, Lowey Dannenberg, P.C., and Labaton Sucharow LLP.

The Flo App Class Action Lawsuit is Erica Frasco v. Flo Health Inc, Case No: 3:21-cv-00757-SK, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.