There are ratings of startups making fertility tracker and household planning apps lately, however a shopper experiences investigation has singled out Glow Inc. for serious safety and privacy flaws.
First, shopper experiences’ staff was once in a position to access very private data together with knowledge and comments about users’ sex lives, historical past of miscarriages, abortions and more, via a privacy loophole having to do with the way the app allowed couples to link their debts and share data.
additionally, consumer reports discovered that being pregnant Glow group boards transmitted non-public knowledge about its users including their full name, e mail deal with, approximate location, birthdate and collection of different well being details they’d logged inside the app.
the information was once easily unearthed and parsed using a free-to-download security trying out app, and online calculators, the document mentioned.
Glow reportedly made instant strikes to repair the security issues with their app and issued a satisfactory replace to their app after shopper reviews notified them of the vulnerabilities.
however, it’s a bit of unsettling the startup hadn’t completely examined its own methods enough to search out and restore these flaws first.
shopper studies arrange dummy bills to test the app for privacy and safety flaws, and didn’t get entry to users’ non-public data.
Glow CEO Mike Huang was once not straight away available for comment. Glow’s government chairman is veteran tech entrepreneur and investor Max Levchin, whose HVF Labs, a more or less startup foundry, launched the firm.
it’ll be fascinating to peer if the scrutiny aimed toward Glow, and the flaws exposed, encourage a wave of safety-oriented updates across fertility tracker apps on iOS and Android.
Glow’s competition includes a hefty collection of internet sites, cell apps and even wearables to help couples get or steer clear of getting pregnant.
venture funded competitors embody SOSV-backed Kindara, which works in conjunction with a sensible thermometer called Wink to measure basal body temperature; Union square Ventures-backed duration and ovulation tracker Clue; and natural Cycles, which is backed by Bonnier Media boom.
Fertility tracking apps had been discovered, to this point, to be “normally inaccurate” in a learn about by means of researchers with Weill Cornell medication in New York city, revealed in the July difficulty of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
That’s not excellent information for people counting on them for household planning. And it’s definitely now not just right news for ladies who don’t want to change into pregnant and fail to make use of other methods of contraception together with the tech.
Featured picture: 2nix Studio/Shutterstock (image HAS BEEN MODIFIED)
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cellular – TechCrunch
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