Warning: *Privacy Not Included with this product
Babycenter
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)
Can it snoop on me?
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?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
No
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Your name; precise location; your due date; gender; age/date of birth; nationality; salutation; job title, company information, education, work experience and other professional information; postal address; telephone and/or mobile number; email address; and your public social media handles or profile(s).
Body related
Information provided in response to quizzes or surveys or to use certain health-related programs, such as supporting healthy pregnancies; and photograph (if you or another user posts a photo on the Service).
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
No known privacy or security incidents discovered in the last 3 years.
Child Privacy Information
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
Strong password
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
Privacy policy
Dive Deeper
-
15 Million Downloaded Pregnancy Trackers That May Give Data To Cops Without A Warrant—Should You Worry?Forbes
-
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: Should you delete your period-tracking app?TechCrunch
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‘Delete every digital trace of any menstrual tracking’: Are period-tracking apps safe to use in a post-Roe world?MarketWatch
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