flurry

A high-profile trial about data privacy violations by Facebook parent company Meta concluded with a shocking verdict from the jury: Meta violated California’s consumer privacy laws. The lawsuit concerned allegations that Meta unlawfully collected the personal health data of users of the Flo Ovulation & Period Tracker app. Women who use the app are encouraged to enter private details about their health, including sexual activity, birth control, and menstrual cycles.

In major legal news, Flo Health settles data privacy lawsuit accusing the company of violating California’s consumer privacy laws. The class action lawsuit alleged that Flo Health collected the highly personal health information of millions of women who used the company’s period-tracking app and then unlawfully shared that data with Meta (Facebook), Google, and other tech companies. The harvesting of users’ protected healthcare information is seen as particularly invasive because the data often includes intimate details about a person’s health and sexuality.