C‘It’s a moment, silent, in which a woman entrusts something deeply intimate to an app: the date of her last period, a positive test, a miscarriage, a delay. A daily gesture that generates data capable of describing desires, fears, life choices. In the era of FemTech – platforms, apps and technological microdevices applied to women’s health and well-being this information becomes raw material for an algorithm that observes, learns and predicts. Cycle, fertility and pregnancy apps have hundreds of millions of downloads worldwide. They calculate ovulation, send notifications about the fertile window, monitor weight, sleep, mood, stress, follow the pregnancy week after week. Together with wearable products such as rings and bracelets, they activate a market worth around 70 billion dollars and should reach 120 billion by 2033. Numbers that show how it is not a “niche”, but one of the new drivers of digital innovation.
They are useful tools, especially where access to health services is limited. However, a simple and crucial question remains: who governs this data?
Cycle, reproduction and algorithm. When the app gets it wrong (and the body doesn’t)
“Apps are not always precise and, if taken literally, can become counterproductive,” he observes Irene Cetin, director of Obstetrics at the Mangiagalli Clinic of the Milan Polyclinic and professor at the University of Milan. «I recently followed a young woman who wanted to become pregnant and she limited intercourse only to the days indicated by the app, which however did not coincide with her actual fertile period. It was enough to explain to her that fertility can extend over several days to increase the chances of conception.” For Cetin, artificial intelligence can be a valid organizational support, like an agenda: “It helps to remember dates, to put order. But it does not replace knowledge of one’s body or medical guidance.”
The risk is a continuous medicalization of reproductive life: notifications, alerts, fertility scores that can generate anxiety and a sense of inadequacy. And he warns: «Reproductive data must be protected like clinical data. We are talking about an intimate and highly sensitive sphere, which in scientific research we deal with only anonymously and under the control of ethics committees.”
The algorithm behind the screen: where the information goes
A Cornell University study of 45 apps – for a total of 587 million downloads – shows that 78 percent offer functions related to cycles and fertility, but almost all of them collect much more information: demographic data, weight, physical activity, medications, mental health, sex life. Sometimes also ethnicity, occupation, income. 95 percent integrate third-party tracking, often linked to large technology platforms. This means information can enter global advertising ecosystems. It’s not just a matter of privacy. It’s profiling. And that information, one day, could affect health insurance, a mortgage request, even a professional selection.
There is no shortage of international precedents. Flo Healthan app that tracks period symptoms, has been subject to Federal Trade Commission action for sharing health data for marketing purposes. Prem (reports fertile days, ed.) received a fine for sharing fertility data with Google and Chinese analytics companies. Signs of a still fragile boundary between service and commercial exploitation.
Protection of personal data and algorithm, between consensus or automaticity
«In the “accept it and continue” society, consensus risks losing its value as a manifestation of will» he observes Ginevra Cerrina Feroni, vice-president of the Guarantor for the protection of personal data. «We are used to fast scrolling and underestimate the value of each click. But health data is the most sensitive and can only be processed under strict conditions. Any commercial use that affects the dignity or vulnerability of the person in a delicate phase of life is not acceptable.”
Remember an emblematic episode: in 2018 a woman who had lost her baby wrote to the platforms asking not to receive any more advertising for baby products because it had been too painful for her. “It’s proof of how insidious digital stalking can be.”
Maternity, algorithm and privacy protection
Privacy regulations are an important safeguard but the protections risk being weakened in the face of less than conscious choices. And the risk that information on fertility or pregnancy influences insurance or professional assessments is real” he warns. “Because of this specific European or national supervision and guidelines are neededwhich clarify transparency obligations, data minimization and security requirements”. The challenge, he concludes, is twofold: promoting information and awareness, but also building an institutional alliance that puts women at the center of public policies, protecting them from discrimination – even indirect – and from any possible digital violence.
FemTech of Italy: it’s time for rules
In Italy there are over ninety active FemTech companies, 80 percent founded by women. Of these, 63 percent collect and process data and 23 percent have developed an app, and the issue of transparency remains a central issue. «Every day we share information on sleep, physical activity and vital parameters without clearly knowing who uses them, for what purposes and with which third parties they are shared» explains Valeria Leuti, founder of Tech4Fem and director of the FemTech Observatory.
«FemTech was born in the digital world, where the service is often free, but the user pays with their data, which is monetized. This model cannot be applied uncritically to women’s health. If not governed, it can become an instrument of control.”
Also for Leuti, the sector is ripe for more targeted regulation and for a clear qualification of this information treated as health data.
The biases behind the algorithm
But alongside the rules, digital education is needed. «Algorithms are not autonomous entities: they are designed by people, with their prejudices. The risk is not the technology itself, but how it is built and used. In a context in which infertility affects 15-20 percent of couples, have algorithms built on correct gender data can concretely improve reproductive health.”
With a growing share of women expected to use digital health wallets by 2030, the issue is urgent. It’s not about slowing down innovation, but about establishing rules that put the person at the centreso that technology does not transform into a new form of control.
