Bodies like yours : enquiring data privacy in FemTech

• The digitalisation of the reproductive body has seen a myriad of cutting-edge technologies to prioritise neglected intimate health and care topics, such as fertility and contraception. The impact of these intimate data on livelihood and society is pervasive including that privacy is critical to safeguarding security as this increasing digitalisation also produces increasingly large datasets. In this paper, we enquire the collective nature of privacy in female-oriented technologies (FemTech) to show how this ever-extending collection of data implicates many beyond the individual. We introduce a pilot study on the data collection practices of a subset of FemTech devices with fertility tracking service. We demonstrate that data is collected about the user and others, such as their immediate relationships and user groups as a whole. We suggest that it is critical we ask who is vulnerable and discuss approaches to mitigate collective harm.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Annan data- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Other Computer and Information Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Human-centered computin

Human computer interaction (HCI)

Security and privacy

Social aspects of security and privacy

human-computer interaction

människa-datorinteraktion

design

design

Computer Science

datalogi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)