3w ago

A US jury finds Meta violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act when it intentionally recorded the health data of women via the period tracking app Flo

www.courthousenews.com

Meta violated privacy law, jury says in menstrual data fight

Hacker News @lemmy.bestiver.se

RSS Bot @lemmy.bestiver.se

BOT

3w ago

Meta violated privacy law, jury says in menstrual data fight

www.courthousenews.com /meta-violated-privacy-law-jury-says-in-menstrual-data-fight/

17 comments

Billions in fines (massively exceeding profits from the operation) and jail time for those knowingly involved or this means zilch.
- It is a civil lawsuit so nobody will be jailed.
- This means zilch.
- Lizard boy will buy another hospital and all will be forgotten.
  
  android zuckerborg to be exact, still trying to learn how to act human.
Uh, holy shit. Meta doesn't even make Flo. This is worse: the developers were specifically selling their users' menstrual data to Facebook.
Anybody have an open-source tracker they'd recommend?
- Anybody have an open-source tracker they'd recommend?
  A paper calendar.
  Srs.
- Drip. Local, open source, available on F-Droid, well funded, explicitly gender inclusive
- I can't recommend one but there are a few on F-Droid. This came up previously when Roe vs. Wade was repealed, you might want to do a search for that.
  Edit: here is Lockdowns take on this kind of thing (it's an iOS firewall and adblocker) https://lockdownprivacy.com/about
  Note that I am not recommending their service (I use Android) only their blog post about this
- A piece of paper
- Anybody have an open-source tracker they'd recommend?
  No app is going to take the place of a trained and licensed haruspex.
Proof that all privacy fears eventually come true. This is exactly what people said period tracker apps would do. Sell their data.
Even Flo?
So what happens if like, Texas passes a law that says they have to store this data? Are online services all going to have to write up to 50 different backend implementations and accurately determine what state each user is in and route them to the correct system to be on the right side of US law?
- I work in a tech company that is nowhere near the size of Meta. We have a legal team that constantly monitors laws not just in all states, but in all countries, in order to make sure we comply with everything everywhere. If you want to operate somewhere you have to follow the laws, it's always been this way.
  Some companies choose to just not offer their services in locations that have laws they're not willing to comply with. Others go the other way and implement restrictive requirements - like EU and California privacy laws - globally, instead of checking for location and offering different experiences.
  In a situation where different locations have conflicting requirements, like in your example, the options remain the same: either implement both regionally, or stop offering the product in one or both of those locations.
  
  If you want to write a small website, app, or web service where the whole endeavor is less commitment than that kind of legal team, seems like you'd just be kind of screwed.
- It will keep being apealed until it reaches a federal court.

17 comments