Privacy · 7 min read · Published June 10, 2026
After the Flo Settlements: How to Choose a Private Period Tracker
In 2025, menstrual-app privacy stopped being a hypothetical. A jury found Meta liable under California privacy law in a case involving Flo app data, and Google and Flo Health reached a proposed settlement reported at $56 million. If those headlines made you look differently at the tracker on your phone, this guide is for you.
What actually happened
Three separate events shaped the public conversation:
- 2021: The FTC finalized an order with Flo Health over allegations that the app shared sensitive health data with third parties, including Facebook and Google, despite privacy promises.
- August 2025: A California jury found Meta violated the state's privacy law in class-action litigation involving data from the Flo period-tracking app, as reported by CNBC.
- September 2025: Reuters reported that Google and Flo Health agreed to pay a combined $56 million in a proposed settlement of a related class action over menstrual-health data sharing.
None of this describes how Flo's current app necessarily behaves today; Flo has since published updated privacy practices. The point is different: the litigation showed how menstrual data flowed through ordinary analytics and advertising SDKs, and how little visibility users had into that flow.
The structural lesson: data that never leaves cannot be shared
Every cloud-connected health app asks you to trust three things at once: the company's current policy, its consent plumbing, and every SDK it embeds. Any one of those can change in an update you never read about.
A local-first app changes the question. If cycle data is stored only on your device, with no account and no third-party SDKs, there is no server-side dataset to share, subpoena, sell, leak, or settle over. You do not have to trust intentions; the architecture removes the capability.
A checklist before you trust any cycle app
- Account: Can you use every feature without creating one?
- Storage: Is data kept on-device, and is the local database encrypted?
- SDKs: Does the policy disclose advertising, analytics, or crash-reporting SDKs?
- Backups: Are backups user-controlled files you can store where you choose?
- Exports and deletion: Can you get your data out, and is deletion real?
- Business model: Subscription, ads, or one-time purchase? Ad-funded models monetize attention and data.
For a deeper version of this checklist, see Private Period Tracker: A Checklist Before You Trust an App.
Where Local Cycle fits
Local Cycle was built around the answer to that checklist: no account, an encrypted local database, no advertising or analytics SDKs, user-controlled encrypted backups, and a one-time $9.99 purchase after a 7-day trial. It also covers situations most trackers skip, including pregnancy loss logging that preserves history, perimenopause mode, and a full postpartum year.
Whatever app you choose, choose it by architecture, not marketing. The 2025 settlements were expensive lessons in the difference.
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Frequently asked questions
What happened in the Flo privacy litigation?
In August 2025, a California jury found Meta violated state privacy law in litigation involving Flo app data. In September 2025, Google and Flo Health reached a proposed settlement reported at $56 million. Flo's earlier data sharing was the subject of a 2021 FTC order.
Does this mean period apps are unsafe?
Not all of them. The architecture matters: apps that keep data on-device with no accounts and no third-party SDKs cannot share what they never receive.
What should I look for in a private period tracker?
No required account, encrypted local storage, no advertising or analytics SDKs, user-controlled backups and exports, and a readable privacy policy.