Babycenter

Warning: *Privacy Not Included with this product

Babycenter

Review date: Aug. 9, 2022

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Mozilla says

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People voted: Very creepy

Babycenter, owned by the same company that owns What to Expect, comes with all the same scary privacy concerns we found with What to Expect. This pregnancy app says it has been used by over 400 million expecting parents to track baby development, get tips to deal with pregnancy symptoms, find maternity clothes, plan for your delivery day, and lots more. They even say, "Once your newborn arrives, our free pregnancy app automatically turns into a daily parenting guide." All that sounds great. What doesn't sound great is how much personal information they collect, use, share, and even sell for lots of purposes like advertising and personalization. Yeah, the Babycenter pregnancy app, just like the What to Expect app, raises all kinds of privacy red flags. It's probably smart to find a better pregnancy partner for your baby journey.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

Everyday Health, the company that owns pregnancy app Babycenter (and the pregnancy app What to Expect too), just comes right out and admits they plan to sell personal information they collect on you. At least they are honest and straightforward about it in their lengthy and dense privacy policy, we'll give them that.

Selling your personal information isn't all they plan to do with it either. They say they can share it with lots of third party advertisers for targeted behavioral advertising. They can take your data and gather more data on you from sources like social media, public sources, and data brokers to build an even bigger profile on you with all your data. They say they they can use that data for lots of personalization and targeted marketing and advertising to try and sell you more goods and services. It seems there is a whole lot of money to be made using the personal information of pregnant women and expecting families. Which makes sense when they say they can collect a whole lot of your personal information — everything from your name, email, phone number to your due date, gender of your baby, education, work experience, precise location, browsing history, views and opinions, photographs, and much more. Yikes!

We're not even sure all users can request this data they collect on you be deleted if that want. Everyday Health was actually kinda vague about that in their privacy policy and we're not clear if users outside of the EU and California who are protected by stronger privacy laws have the same rights to access and delete their data. Not good.

And if you're worried this company could turn over to law enforcement that sensitive personal information they admit using to track you right there in the Apple app store data privacy section (seriously, go check that out), well, we're right there with you (and others are too). Their privacy policy says things like, "we may disclose your User Information to: […] legal and regulatory authorities, upon request" and "Subject to applicable law, we reserve the right to release information concerning any user of Services when we have grounds to believe that the user… has engaged in (or we have grounds to believe is engaging in) any illegal activity, and to release information in response to court and governmental orders, other requests from government entities, civil subpoenas, discovery requests and otherwise as required by law or regulatory obligations." That seems to indicate Everyday Health might give up a users' data through voluntary disclosure, which is a policy we really kinda hate here at Mozilla. We much prefer when companies state they won't give up user data to law enforcement unless required to under subpoena, and even then, we like to see them commit to only giving up the bare minimum necessary.

What's the worst that could go what with the Babycenter pregnancy app. Holy crap, soooo much. It's possible your data could be sold and used to track and see if you were pregnant and there weren't which could flag you as someone who might have had an abortion, which is not great in our post Roe vs Wade world. It's also possible your data could be sold to someone looking to target pregnant women with crazy advertisements aimed at getting them to name their baby Superduperawesomechildnumerouno, and then we have a whole bunch of kids running around with that name, and yeah, we don't want that either. Seriously, though, there is a whole lot that could go wrong with a company that seems to disregard their user's privacy to the degree Everyday Health does. Please understand, this app comes with *Privacy Not Included.

Tips to protect yourself

  • Opt-out of the sale of personal information by a business, by submitting a request via https://dsar.whattoexpect.com or email [email protected] !
  • When you no longer use the app, go to "Delete app data" in the app menu
  • Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc.
  • Do not give access to your files and media or location.
  • Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images and videos)
  • Keep your app regularly updated
  • Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: N/A

App: No

Microphone

Device: N/A

App: No

Tracks location

Device: N/A

App: Yes

What can be used to sign up?

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

We ding this product as it may sell data. It may also obtain data from third parties to combine with data about you.

"We may also sell or transfer Online Data to certain third parties such as advertisers who will use this data to serve ads that they believe are relevant to your interests, and who agree to maintain the confidentiality of this information. Some of these third parties may combine the Online Data with their own data about you to form a more detailed picture."

"We may and may have disclosed or sold the categories of Personal Information listed in Section 9 (“What Information We Disclose to Third Parties”) for a business or commercial purpose."

"We may collect or obtain your Personal Information from third parties who provide it to us. This may include offline channels such as through telephone or direct mail efforts; from customers, vendors, suppliers, third parties, commercially available or publicly-available sources (e.g., data brokers, data aggregators, public databases, etc.); third party affiliate network operators; referral sources; and social network sites or services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)."

"We may and may have disclosed Personal Information to the following categories of third parties for a business purpose:

other entities within the Company group for a legitimate business purpose such as operating the Services and providing the Services to you;
third party Processors for the purpose of providing the Services to you;
third party providers where our Services use third party advertising, plugins or content;"

"In addition, we may disclose your user information to […] third parties whose practices are not covered by this Privacy Policy (e.g., third party providers of goods and services, marketing and advertising companies and agencies, content publishers and retailers)."

How the company says they may share data with law enforcement:
We may disclose your User Information to other entities within the Company group, for legitimate business purposes (including operating the Services, and providing services to you), in accordance with applicable law. In addition, we may disclose your User Information to legal and regulatory authorities, upon request, or for the purposes of reporting any actual or suspected breach of applicable law or regulation.

How can you control your data?

We ding this product as it is unclear if all users can delete their data.

You have the right to opt-out of the sale of personal information by a business, by submitting a request via https://dsar.whattoexpect.com or email [email protected].

The app take every reasonable step to ensure that your User Information is only Processed for the minimum period necessary for the purposes set out in their Policy.

If you are lucky to be covered by GDPR and California or other laws, you have the right to delete your data. For others, it is unclear how to delete your data based on the privacy policy.

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Average

No known privacy or security incidents discovered in the last 3 years.

Child Privacy Information

The Services are not intended for use by children under the age of 16 (or applicable age in your country) (“Minor(s)”). Minors should not provide any Personal Information or use our public discussion areas, forums or chats. Minors under the age of 18 are not permitted to make purchases through the Services or obtain coupons or codes from the Services to purchase goods or services on third party websites. If, notwithstanding these prohibitions, your children disclose information about themselves in the public discussion areas, consequences may occur that are not intended for children (for example, they may receive unsolicited messages from other parties). If it is discovered that the app has collected Personal Information from a Minor, we will delete that information immediately.

Can this product be used offline?

Can’t Determine

User-friendly privacy information?

No

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Unknown

Encryption

Yes

Strong password

Yes

Security updates

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Can’t Determine

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

Can’t Determine

Is this AI untrustworthy?

Can’t Determine

What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?

Is the company transparent about how the AI works?

Can’t Determine

Does the user have control over the AI features?

Can’t Determine

*Privacy Not Included

Dive Deeper

  • 15 Million Downloaded Pregnancy Trackers That May Give Data To Cops Without A Warrant—Should You Worry?
    Forbes Link opens in a new tab
  • Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: Should you delete your period-tracking app?
    TechCrunch Link opens in a new tab
  • ‘Delete every digital trace of any menstrual tracking’: Are period-tracking apps safe to use in a post-Roe world?
    MarketWatch Link opens in a new tab

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