Police in the United Kingdom are using data from period tracking apps and mass spectrometry tests conducted on blood, placenta, and urine to investigate patients who have had “unexplained” miscarriages.
Though abortion is legal in the UK, there are TRAP laws in place requiring certain conditions to be met first, paramount of which is that two separate doctors need to agree that the patient meets the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act before any treatment can go ahead. Self-managed abortion is a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK, as is any abortion performed after the pregnancy has progressed passed 23 weeks and six days, unless the patient is at risk of serious physical harm or death, or the fetus has severe developmental anomalies.
Hey, people who menstruate! Don’t use software that leaks your period. There are clean, open source alternatives for your Android or Apple phone.
https://bloodyhealth.gitlab.io/
A Data protective App funded by the German government. Take that, Brits!
As if we needed more to be depressed about, what a mess our country now is. I can see why people immigrate.
Emigrate, maybe?
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Not a bad idea in terms of keeping sensitive information out of the hands of companies and dragnet surveillance, but probably ineffective if your threat model is local police seizing your phone (like in the article) because you had a miscarriage, and using period tracker data against you somehow.
Shame it was written for an old ass version of Android or I’d happily switch.
E: Idk why this is getting downvoted. I can’t install it from the Play Store because the app hasn’t been updated. Why is that controversial? 😅
Maybe their GitLab has the latest version? Sometimes open source apps will release first on their own repo before it gets pushed to external app repos.
I’ve always been a bit wary of apps which haven’t been released to the app store (maybe I’m overly paranoid!), so I’m just gonna stick with my crappy spreadsheet for now instead, until it gets updated. Appreciate the suggestion though :)
Or just use a piece of paper
When you use it once a month for decades, that paper starts to get either full or lost.
Use a paper journal then.
Still doesn’t help much if you lose it, I’m guessing you don’t menstruate? Plus, apps do the prediction for you so you don’t need to count days to figure out whether your symptoms are hormonal or physical or whether you’re late or not, etc.
So in other words you’re trying to make excuses for doing something you know you’re not supposed to be doing because you refuse to let yourself be inconvenienced in the name of doing what’s right or even basic self-interest.
Entirely unsurprising.
Uh, why exactly am I not supposed to be tracking my period? Are you really trying to mansplain how to deal with menstruation?
There are ways of safely recording data that don’t involve pens and paper, believe it or not.
-Maybe if you take a second away from furiously mashing that downvote button and have a think about things, you’ll realise you’re being a little bit silly.
Use a paper journal and do the math yourself. There is no safe way to do it electronically anymore.
Either tolerate the inconvenience or suffer the consequences. The choice is yours. 🤷
Haha, sure thing kiddo.
If periods get you this worked up, I think you may have bigger fish to fry. As for me, I finished high school decades ago which means I don’t have to deal with people like you. Toodles!