A fertility app that helps women monitor their cycles if they hope to become pregnant, sharing user data with various Chinese companies, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The International Digital Accountability Council (IDAC), a watchdog for non-profit consumer privacy, said its research found that the Android version of the app shared data with three Chinese analytics companies, including unique device identifiers that could help them track users’ activities across other apps and websites.
IDAC sent letters to the FTC, Google, and the Illinois Attorney General, where Premom is based, earlier this month. Since users had no way to take off from tracking and were unaware that it was happening themselves, IDAC says the practice could violate state and federal law. It’s also a violation of Google’s rules.
IDAC identified the companies as Jiguang, UMSNS, and Umeng. The latest company, Umeng, is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The Beijing-based startup offers “mobile app analytics solutions for mobile development teams and individual developers,” according to its profile on Crunchbase. Jiguang’s profile also states that it “provides its clients with analysis of user activity, precision marketing, financial risk.” Jiguang told the Peal it was “100 percent in accordance with Chinese laws.”
Premom did not respond to our request for comment Thursday, but it did tell the Peal that it had withdrawn Jiguang’s access to the data, which IDAC also confirmed. However, according to IDAC, the Premom app also shared data with the two other Chinese companies at least mid-June. Premom told the Peal it has not currently used either company.
