Flo App Sells Its Users’ Intimate Information, Class Action Lawsuits Say

An Ontario woman says that the period tracking app Flo sold her and millions of other Canadians’ personal information without their knowledge or consent.

Lead plaintiff, Rachel Park, is now filing a class action lawsuit to represent those millions of consumers who used the Flo app, but didn’t give the company permission to sell their private information to data mining giants like Google and Facebook.

Flo users can enter up to 50 different types of information related to their health and mental wellbeing on the app. Park says that she and others who used the app were never told that the highly personal information they entered into the Flo app, including pregnancy and period tracking information, when they had sexual intercourse, and other health details, would be disclosed.

“Flo blatantly violated the rights of its users by disclosing, for profit, vast quantities of intimate personal health information from millions of Canadian women without their knowledge or consent,” alleges the class action lawsuit. 

The class action lawsuit points to statements by Flo assuring users that the information they enter into the app will not be disclosed without their permission; however, a report by a major American news source in 2019 revealed that the company was sending users’ unsecured health information to third parties. Since the report, Flo has faced at least two other class action lawsuits filed in California, along with an investigation by a U.S. consumer protection agency. 

Park claims that Flo is an artificial intelligence (AI) company and that users are compelled to enter personal information into the app. 

“The App relies on AI-based adaptive learning to track women’s ovulation, menstruation, fertility, cycle symptoms and pregnancies,” explains the class action lawsuit. “ To achieve this objective, Flo actively encouraged, and encourages, women to input vast quantities of Health Information into the App to initiate the AI-based formula and consequent period, ovulation and pregnancy tracking.”

Park says that she and other Canadian women were induced into using the Flo app based on advertising encouraging them to “take full control of their health.” Little did they know that they’d lose full control of their private information. Flo was using their information to allow third-party advertisers to track them across the internet, claims the lawsuit. 

The class action lawsuit is seeking damages, along with a court order barring Flo from selling additional personal information from its users. Park proposes to represent a Class of Canadians, excluding Quebec residents, who used the Flo app between June 1, 2016 and Feb. 23, 2019. 

Do you use Flo? Are you concerned about the app selling your personal information? Tell us about it in the comment section below. 

The lead plaintiff is represented by Jonathan J. Foreman and Anne E. Legate-Wolfe of Foreman & Company PC. 

The Flo Personal Information Class Action Lawsuit is Park v. Flo Health, Inc., Case No. CV-21-00000450-00CP, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

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