A criticism by the Federal Trade Commission accuses fashionable fertility monitoring app Premom of illegally sharing personal knowledge.

In the criticism, the company says the app, developed by Easy Healthcare, has been sharing personal info with Google and Chinese analytic firms since 2018. Easy Healthcare shared knowledge about customers’ reproductive well being, being pregnant standing and different health-related info that would determine customers.

The sharing of particular person customers’ personal info violates the corporate’s personal privateness coverage, in response to the FTC. The coverage promised to share solely knowledge that would not be used to determine a person consumer.

Easy Healthcare additionally apparently shared identifiable info, like geolocation knowledge, with Chinese analytic firms Jiguang and Umeng. The firm did so realizing that the 2 companies would use the information for their very own enterprise functions or switch it to a different third occasion.

According to the criticism, Easy Healthcare stopped sharing knowledge with the companies solely after Google notified it that the coverage violated the phrases and situations of its app retailer.

“We will vigorously enforce the Health Breach Notification Rule to defend consumer’s health data from exploitation. Companies collecting this information should be aware that the FTC will not tolerate health privacy abuses,” Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Sam Levine mentioned.

In response to the criticism, Easy Healthcare agreed to pay $100,000 in civil penalties for violating the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule, which requires firms that maintain private well being data to inform shoppers when private info is leaked to exterior events. The firm can pay a further $100,000 to Connecticut, Oregon and the District of Columbia, all of which helped the fee’s investigation and can break up the proceeds.

“Our agreement with the FTC is not an admission of any wrongdoing,” a press release on Premom’s web site reads. “Rather, it is a settlement to avoid the time and expense of litigation and enables us to put this matter behind us and focus on you, our users.”

Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com