- [Desi] The hottest apps are all about femtech,
which is a combination of female and mtech,
and this technology for females
is a rapidly growing industry that,
like sand after a day at the beach,
has found its way into every part of women's bodies,
tracking all of our needs, from pregnancy, nursing, periods,
even tracking Kegel exercises.
You thought your Peloton instructor was tough,
you have not met my Kegel coach.
But how necessary are these apps,
and will they replace our doctors?
- My name is Lynae Brayboy.
I am an obstetrician gynecologist
and a reproductive endocrinologist
with a specialty in infertility,
and I'm also an egg biologist.
And I also do clinical research-
- Still going.
- On femtech.
- I am Desi Lydic, and I too am a woman
but much less accomplished.
So you're a doctor, clearly.
Why are women going to these apps?
Why not just go to someone like you?
- Well, there are a lot of great apps that are high quality,
but what people don't realize is that a lot of physicians
will take what's called a history,
what's been happening with you, what changes have you had,
and a lot of people can't answer it
because they haven't really thought
about what's happening in their cycles
or with their periods.
So if you're keeping track of your own history,
then you can get the treatment that you need
for the concerns that you have.
- [Desi] She's right.
Without the reminder of an app,
women are often too busy making up for the female recession
to track their cycles.
I mean, what am I gonna do, write it in a diary,
hide it under a pillow?
Then my husband finds it and reads it, publishes it.
Then I'm a multimillionaire author of a period journal?
Can't do that.
The tour dates alone!
- Yeah, so period tracking is really a wonderful tool
because what it does is it allows an individual
to track what's happening in their own health,
and when they actually do meet with their physician,
they're able to advocate for themselves.
And it's empowering because people may feel
that they're the only one suffering from health conditions,
and that's not the case.
- Yeah, women do feel isolated and need to share more.
This does need to be normalized.
- And so when you're tracking your own menstrual cycle,
you can say, "Hey, I don't think this is right,"
but you should be careful about apps that are free
and don't tell you what they do with your data.
- What do you mean?
- Well, there have been some apps
that unfortunately have violated the trust of their users
by selling data.
- (scoffs) (chuckles) Oh, man.
Can you imagine if someone put in
that they have two vaginas? (chuckles)
That'd be embarrassing.
- You should be very wary of apps that don't disclose
what they do with your data, and that's unfortunate.
- Are you (beep) kidding me?
- More than 19 million women in the U.S.
have downloaded the Flo app, which tracks menstrual cycles
and pregnancies, all of it personal information
that millions of women are now discovering was also shared
with other companies.
- [Desi] Selling our ovulation data?
These apps are snitching on our snatches!
Who would do something like this?
I decided to confront the woman person
who gave femtech its lady name
and created one of these suspicious chick apps.
- My name is Ida Tin.
I am the co-founder of an app called Clue,
and we help people with cycles
and women understand their menstrual health
and their bodies.
- Ida, have to be honest with you.
I feel really violated.
I mean, I shared some of my deepest,
darkest secrets with these apps,
my dense breasts, my unfriendly cervical environment,
all the times I fantasized about the Property Brothers.
How do I know that I'm ever gonna be able to trust again?
- We have never sold your data,
and we will never sell your data.
- Look, Ida, I wanna trust you,
but this is not just a normal pact.
We're talking periods here.
This is a blood pact.
- I know. We take it really seriously.
- Okay, well, how concerned should we be
about this data leak?
Is it like a day one leak or like a full blown day three,
tie a sweatshirt around your waist
and pray for the best kinda leak?
- We should be pretty worried because these are companies
that deliberately have chosen to share more data
than they had told their users that they would share,
and that's not right.
- So how can we safely use these apps moving forward?
- Well, it's hard, honestly.
In Europe, we have really tough regulation,
and we've been checked.
Whereas in the U.S., you are not being checked.
So one good navigation is to see
how does this company make money,
and you can see how they make money, that's a red flag.
- So if it's free, that's a red flag.
- If you don't pay for the product you're using,
you most likely are the product yourselves.
- [Desi] So clearly, femtech is a lot like our bodies,
we have to stay vigilant
to make sure everything is functioning properly.
So until they invent femtech tech to monitor these apps,
I guess we'll just have to track them ourselves.
(sorrowful music)