Pregnancy+

Warning: *Privacy Not Included with this product

Reproductive Health Pregnancy Trackers

Pregnancy+

Philips Digital UK Limited
Wi-Fi

Review date: Aug. 9, 2022

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Mozilla researched 8 hours
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Mozilla says

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People voted: Very creepy

Pregnancy+ is made by UK-based company Philips Digital. They also make an app called Baby+. Both apps share the same privacy policy. Pregnancy+ seems to have tens of millions of downloads from the Google and Apple apps store, making it one of the more popular pregnancy apps out there. The app — free for the first 13 weeks — requires a subscription to get your through your entire pregnancy. The apps helps you track baby development using visualizations of fruits, animals, and sweets (uhm, like, your baby is the size of a cookie now, not the size of a cupcake?). It also has pregnancy tools like a due date calculator, kick counter, pregnancy weight log, and gives you lots of pregnancy guides, articles, blog posts, and even helps you create a custom birth plan. The app has lots of ways to collect lots of information about you throughout your pregnancy. So, how does it do protecting all that very personal information. Eh, that's not so sweet.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

Gold or Silver? That's the question Pregnancy+ asks users at sign up. Which "experience" would you like? Then they push you hard to pick Gold by saying Gold is "the best possible experience with a customized journey and advertisement that is relevant for you." What that really means is that if you pick Gold, they'll track you not only with cookies, but also with your advertising ID so they can learn more about you, target ads toward you based on your interests and preferences, and share even more of your personal data with the likes of Facebook and Google. Pick Silver, people!

So, yeah, Pregnancy+ does collect a whole lot of personal and sensitive information on you. Things like name, age, location, weight, baby's gender, due date, pictures of your belly, what's on your pregnancy shopping list, and so much more if you chose to share things like doctor's notes and favorite baby names. And, as you can already tell, it uses some of your personal information to have third-parties target you with ads. Pregnancy+ also shares data with more than just third-party advertisers. They also say they can share your personal information with external media partners like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for ad purposes and they can share your information with lots of business partners for marketing purposes. They say, "By selecting one or multiple partners and tapping 'Sign-up!' you are authorizing and instructing Philips to share your contact details (email, first name, last name), due date, mobile device information (country, locale and operating system) and authorization (consent text and date) with the selected partners to receive personalized offers from them in accordance with your choices."

Pregnancy+ collects a lot of personal information, asks to share a good deal of this information for targeted advertising and marketing purposes, and even combines all your data to create a pretty big profile on you to target you with even more personalized content and services. None of this is great if you care about privacy.

And then there is the question so important in the post Roe vs Wade world in the United States. What and how does Pregnancy+ share your personal information with law enforcement and the government? Well, here's the vague statement addressing that we found in their privacy policy, "When required by law, or as necessary to protect our rights, we may share your data with public and governmental authorities." That doesn't tell us much. We'd love to see a clearer statement about how they handle data sharing with law enforcement.

What's the worst that could happen? Well, with the huge amount of personal and sensitive information Pregnancy+ can collect on you, combined with other data they collect and use to target you with ads and personalization, the worst that could happen could probably include you losing your privacy during your pregnancy. And with their vague statement about what and when they might share information with "public and governmental authorities" including law enforcement, well, yikes! That could go south very quickly. So, we'll leave you with advice from Pregnancy+ privacy policy that actually sounds good to us, "If you do not want us to collect and process your personal data, you may not be able to use the Services." Yeah, maybe not using their services is your best bet if you care about privacy.

Tips to protect yourself

  • 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 camera, files and media.
  • Better choice 'Silver' plan when asked during the sign-up. The 'Golden' one includes personalised advertisement.
  • 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: Yes

Microphone

Device: N/A

App: No

Tracks location

Device: N/A

App: No

What can be used to sign up?

Facebook and Google log-ins available

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

We ding this product for sharing personal data with third parties for advertising purposes, and for combining collected data with third-party data.

"Subject to your choices, we may share your information and/or personal data with the following third parties:
- External Media Channels, including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, for advertising purposes. We share your mobile device’s advertising ID with our partner External Media Channels to show you advertising in their respective environments in accordance with this notice.
- External Platforms, including Facebook, Apple and Google, for Ad measurement and Ad attribution purposes. We share unique identifiers and analytics events with these third parties via Branch Metrics to understand the effectiveness or our Ads in accordance with this notice.
- Advertising partners, for serving content and advertising in the apps."

"We use Google’s ad serving solutions to serve Ads through the apps. Google may combine information collected via the apps, with other information it has independently collected from other services or products. Analytics events and unique identifiers, such as the device advertising ID (only for Gold experience), are sent to Google in order to make advertisement and content more personalized and as relevant as possible. You may receive advertising about products and services not related to Philips or the mother & child care domain. Google uses Cookies on your mobile device when providing its services. Google’s Terms and Privacy Policy for these services are available here:"

"We may combine your personal data, including account data, other data provided by you, Device data, cookies, location data, data collected during your interactions and usage of the Philips digital channels, such as social media, websites, emails, apps and connected products, IP address, cookies, device information, communications you click on or tap, location details and websites you visit."

"We do not sell and have not sold Personal Information in the preceding 12 months, as “sale” is defined in the CCPA. We do not sell the Personal Information of minors under 16 years of age."

How the company says they may share data with law enforcement:
"When required by law, or as necessary to protect our rights, we may share your data with public and governmental authorities. "

How can you control your data?

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

"If you would like to submit a request to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing of personal data that you have previously provided to us, or if you would like to submit a request to receive an electronic copy of your personal data for purposes of transmitting it to another company (to the extent this right to data portability is provided to you by applicable law), you may contact us here. We will respond to your request consistent with applicable law." You can delete your app data through settings. Pregnancy+ will retain your personal data for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which the data is collected.

"After 3 years of inactivity and not using the app, we will ask you if you still want us to retain your personal data. We will provide you with a 3-month window for you to re-consent for us to continue retaining your personal data. Ultimately, without receiving your consent after our contact attempts, we will delete your personal data after 3 years and 3 months."

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

While the Services are not directed to children, as defined under applicable law, it is Philips policy to comply with the law when it requires parent or guardian permission before collecting, using or disclosing personal data of children

Can this product be used offline?

Yes

User-friendly privacy information?

No

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

No

Encryption

Can’t Determine

Strong password

No

We managed to sign in with '11111111'. There is at least a requirement of 8 digits.

Security updates

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Yes

You can submit vulnerability

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

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