My Calendar Period Tracker

There is something kinda funny and also kinda not really funny at all when you see that a period tracking app and an egg timer app made by the same company have basically the same boilerplate privacy policy. We suppose they both kinda deal with eggs, right? It's just that one app could potentially leak or share data that could get you harassed or arrested in states where abortion is no longer legal and the other could leak that you like to hard boil your eggs in your home 5 times a week. See, funny and really not funny at all.

One thing your friendly privacy researchers here at *Privacy Not Included really, really dislike is vagueness in privacy policies. The privacy policy of My Calendar Period Tracker is pretty vague. It says things like, "Information is automatically collected when you use our App. Information collected may include usage details, metadata, and real-time information about the location of your device. We do not generally collect or store information by which we ourselves may personally identify you…" That "may" and "generally" there leave wiggle room we don't feel comfortable with when it comes to what data may be collected on you, especially personally identifiable data and real-time location data.

Another thing your friendly privacy researchers hate is things that make no sense. To us, it makes no sense that the privacy policy says they generally don't collect data that may personally identify you, while stating on the data security section of their Apple App store app page that they use "identifiers" to track you (this could include things like advertising or device IDs, which, eh, aren't exactly your name or email address, but still can be linked to you) and that sensitive information and contact info may be data linked to you. And their Google Play store page clearly states in their data security section that data collected may include name, email, and user IDs. In that same section on the app page, the company says that no data is shared with third parties. And the privacy policy lists a whole host of third-party advertisers like Google, Facebook, and Amazon they share they share data with. All this leaves us scratching our heads. It's also fair to note that Google's own rules for how information is self-reported from companies on these data safety pages is rather confusing and befuddling at times to us.

My Calendar Period Tracker does say they may share some user data with third parties for advertising and personalization services. And they say they "may use and disclose aggregated, or otherwise anonymized information that does not relate to an identifiable natural person without restriction." Now is a good time to remind you that it has been found to be pretty easy to de-anonymize such data, especially if location data is included.

So, the My Calendar Period Tracker app collects data that may or may not be personally identifiable (precise location data is generally pretty identifiable). And they say "When you use the App on an Apple or Android mobile device, certain third parties may use automatic information collection technologies to collect information about you or your device. These third parties may include advertisers, ad networks, ad servers, and analytics companies." So, third parties are collecting information on you as you use this app, including Facebook, Amazon, and other advertising networks. My Calendar also says they can use anonymized information without restriction, even though that data can sometimes be re-identified.

Then there is how My Calendar says they can share information with law enforcement. Here they are very vague. All we found in their privacy policy was this statement, which doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence that they won't voluntarily disclose their user's data: "We use the information collected through the App to … comply with any court order, law, or legal process."

None of these things makes us feel all that good about the privacy practices of the My Calendar Period Tracker app. Good to note too, that Consumer Reports also had concerns about this app when they reviewed it back in 2020.

And while privacy is a concern with this app, we found security to be an even bigger concern. We were able to log into the app using the incredibly insecure password of "1". Yup, one 1 was allowed as a password for an app that tracks your period. That's pretty bad. All in all, we just don't trust the security of this app. Although, they did make a point of having a way to report security vulnerabilities on a website that contain little other information. Which, on the one hand, is good, we like to see that information made available. It also raises some questions as they didn't feel the need to provide much other information on their website about the company or their privacy policies, which makes us wonder if they expect or experience a lot of security vulnerabilities? We just don't know.

What's the worst that could happen with this period tracking app. Dear lord, please don't download it and find out. It's privacy practices are questionable, at best. It's security practices are weak, at best. The My Calendar Period Tracker app leaves us with way too many questions to feel comfortable. Shoot, we don't even think we'd trust downloading the egg timer app this company makes. There's just too big a chance this app comes with *Privacy Not Included.