For most people, yes, if you pick the app with care. The risks are real but specific. Some apps have passed cycle data to advertising and analytics companies. Any company that stores your history can be ordered to hand it over. And an account can be broken into. None of that means you should panic and wipe your phone. It means you should know which kind of app you have and what it does with what you log.
If you’re choosing a new tracker, our guide to period trackers that don’t sell your data walks through reading a privacy policy. This page covers the risks themselves, what the law does and doesn’t cover, and what to do about the app you already use.
What are the actual risks?
There are four, and they aren’t equally likely.
| Risk | How it happens | Who it mostly affects |
|---|---|---|
| Sharing through code inside the app | Analytics and advertising tools built into the app send events back to the companies that make them. | Anyone using an app with ad or analytics SDKs |
| Data brokers | Data about you, including where your phone goes, gets sold and resold. | Apps that share with brokers, and phones with location on |
| Legal requests | A subpoena or warrant reaches a company that holds your history. | People in places where pregnancy outcomes are policed |
| Account breaches | Someone gets into your account through a reused password or a hack of the company. | Account-based apps |
Code inside the app
This is the one with a public record. In 2021 the FTC settled with Flo Health over claims that the app sent “app events” to Facebook, Google, AppsFlyer and Flurry. Some of those events showed whether a user was pregnant. Flo had promised to keep health data private, and the sharing went on until a news story exposed it in February 2019. Flo didn’t admit wrongdoing. Our page on whether Flo sells your data covers what changed after that.
The pattern matters more than the one company. A developer adds a free analytics kit to see which screens people use. That kit reports back to a company whose business is advertising. Nobody has to sell anything for your data to leave.
Data brokers
Brokers buy and resell data about people, and health is part of it. HHS warns that what your apps collect may end up sold to one. Location is the bigger worry. In 2022 the FTC sued a broker called Kochava for selling location data that could trace phones to reproductive health clinics. A period app that never asks for your location can’t add to that. Your other apps might.
Legal requests after Dobbs
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, people have asked whether cycle data could be used against them. A company that stores your data can be served a subpoena or warrant. The case people cite is from Nebraska, and it wasn’t a period app. Police got a mother’s and daughter’s Facebook messages under warrants, and Meta handed them over. We haven’t found a reported US case built on period tracker data. That’s cold comfort if you live in a state with an abortion ban. Messages, searches and location history are the more likely evidence, and a missed period in an app could still be one more piece.
Breaches
Any account can be broken into. Signing in with Apple or Google, or using a unique password, closes the easy way in. If an app outside HIPAA leaks your health data, the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule says it has to tell you. Since 2024 that explicitly includes health apps, and a breach covers an unauthorized disclosure as well as a hack.
Does HIPAA protect period tracker data?
Almost never. HIPAA covers health plans, most health care providers and the companies working for them. HHS says plainly that it generally doesn’t protect data you enter into apps you downloaded for personal use. The exception is an app your clinic or health plan gave you. A period tracker you found on the App Store is protected by its own privacy policy, the FTC’s rules against deceiving you, and whatever your state has passed.
Which state laws protect period data?
Washington’s My Health My Data Act is the strongest. Its definition of health data names reproductive and sexual health information outright, so cycle logs count. A company can’t sell that data without your signed authorization, and you can make it delete what it holds, backups included. Both the state attorney general and you can sue over a violation. Most of it has applied since 2024.
It protects people in Washington, and it can’t stop a court in another state from asking for data. Other states’ rules differ and change often, so check your own before you count on it.
What does the App Store privacy label tell you?
Every iPhone app’s listing has an App Privacy section. The part to read first is Data Used to Track You. Under Apple’s definition, tracking means linking your data with other companies’ data for advertising, or sharing it with a data broker. It counts the SDKs a developer builds in, even when the developer never uses them for ads. A period app with anything listed there is sharing in exactly the way the Flo case was about.
The label has limits. Developers fill it in themselves and are responsible for keeping it accurate. It also says nothing about legal requests, how long data is kept or what deleting does. Use it to rule apps out, then read the policy for the rest.
On-device or account sync, which is safer?
It depends on what you’re protecting against. Here’s how the main designs compare.
| Design | Examples | Can the company hand it over? | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| On your phone only, no account | Euki, drip. | No. It has nothing. | A lost phone can take your history with it |
| Synced, end-to-end encrypted | Apple’s Cycle Tracking in Health | Not readable by Apple | Works only on Apple devices |
| Synced under an account | Plum and most popular apps | It can be asked to | Nothing on features. More depends on the company. |
Euki’s policy says you don’t register, it collects nothing, and you can lock the app with a PIN. drip. says everything you enter stays on your device. Apple says it can’t read Health data synced to iCloud once two-factor authentication is on, and Health is on its list of end-to-end encrypted data. Our guide to Apple Health cycle tracking and the one on period trackers without an account go further.
Our view is simple. If a legal request is a real worry where you live, use an on-device app and export a copy now and then. If it isn’t, a well-run account-based app is fine, and you get a backup and the features that need a server.
Should I delete my period tracker?
It depends on where you live and who could see your phone. If abortion is legal in your state and your app has no tracking on its label, you don’t need to. If it’s restricted, or someone close to you might go through your phone, it makes sense to switch or to stop logging the details you’d rather not have on record.
If you do leave, know what each step removes.
- Delete the account, not just the app. Removing the app from your phone leaves the account and its history on the company’s servers. Find the delete option in the app’s settings and use it first.
- Deleting an account doesn’t pull back anything already sent to another company. If the app shared events with an analytics firm, that copy follows that firm’s rules.
- For an on-device app, deleting the app deletes the data. Check whether it went into a phone backup too.
- Want to keep your history? Export it before you delete anything.
A 5-minute safety check
- Open your app’s App Store listing and scroll to App Privacy. If Data Used to Track You lists anything, switch apps.
- Check whether the app shows ads. If it does, an ad SDK is running inside it.
- In iPhone Settings, open Privacy & Security, then Location Services, and set the app to Never. A period tracker doesn’t need your location.
- Find the delete-account option in the app’s settings so you know it’s there.
- If you have an account, turn on two-factor authentication for the Apple or Google login you use, or switch to a unique password.
- Lock the phone with a passcode. If the app offers its own PIN, use that too.
Where Plum stands
We make Plum, so here it is against the same tests. Plum uses an account. You sign in with Apple or Google, and your cycle is stored on our servers, encrypted in transit and at rest. That’s what moves your history to a new phone and lets a group of friends see each other’s period days. It also means we hold a copy that could be the subject of a legal request. Plum isn’t an on-device tracker, and we won’t pretend it is.
Its App Store privacy label lists nothing under Data Used to Track You. Plum shows no ads, never asks to track you and doesn’t sell personal data. You can delete your account from inside the app under Me, then Security & Privacy, and that erases everything logged under it from our servers. If an on-device app fits your situation better, Euki or drip. is the right choice, and we’d say so.
