As Trump returns, women are using the Oura smart ring to track times when they panic about their privacy

In the week leading up to the Republican candidate’s victory, Google searches for “period tracking apps” skyrocketed in popularity.

The most common questions included “Should I delete my period tracking app?” and “The most private period tracking app.”

Some women are questioning the confidentiality of their ovulation and fertility data because they fear it could be used as a weapon against them under a second Trump administration.

According to a study published by the Federal Trade Commission and authored by researchers and professors at Duke University, period tracking apps “track and collect a large amount of sensitive data, including menstrual cycle, pregnancy, sex life, and location data, “Whatever can be used to detect or deduce abortions.”

Privacy concerns “intensify in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, as law enforcement can now request fertility records from period tracking app companies as evidence in crimes,” the report continued.

The top two privacy searches from period tracking apps were for the Oura ring – a Finnish wearable health device that measures everything from body temperature to sleep duration to blood oxygen levels.

A feature that is also popular with users is “Cycle Insights,” which includes a period prediction tracker and possible pregnancy updates.

While Oura has been readily embraced by women as a powerful tool in a healthcare system that often fails them, that same demographic now fears that it has given too much of itself away to health tech companies.

In fact, the wearables market is expected to grow rapidly in size over the next few years, from a market value of $72 billion in 2023 to over $186 billion in 2030 – led by companies like Apple, Samsung and Garmin.

Oura is growing rapidly in kind.

More than 2.5 million people now wear one of the Finnish company’s titanium rings – prices range from $299 to $499 – and annual sales are expected to double to about $500 million this year.

The company’s CEO, Tom Hale, knows his customers fear they have revealed too much. He said her private information was just that: private.

In conversation with Assets Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Hale said: “We have built a feature into the product that basically allows you to selectively delete your data from the app. And we did this at the request of the users who asked for it.”

Hale emphasized that Oura, like other healthcare brands, is subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects individuals’ medical information and limits the extent to which their data can be shared without patient consent.

However, HIPAA allows government and federal agencies to request information from health care providers for legal or public health reasons — a concern for women who question the extent to which a Trump administration might enforce abortion regulations.

When asked about this point by AssetsHale said Oura will “do what our customers ask and want us to do” — including measures such as fully anonymizing all data.

Additionally, Hale said, Oura’s policy would be to notify users when their data is shared, giving women the option to delete all of their historical data if they feel the need to do so.

Oura added: “As a company based in Finland, Oura is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means we have technical and organizational safeguards in place to keep our members’ data safe in accordance with the stricter standards of European data protection regulations .”

Reality or rhetoric

Hale believes the question of whether to delete cycle data is a particular problem for Oura members because it is so readily embraced by younger women.

In fact, women in their 20s are the brand’s fastest-growing segment, and that number has more than doubled in the past year.

According to Hale, 36% of women who use the brand are between the ages of 25 and 34, with another 23% between the ages of 35 and 44.

Hale explains that this is partly due to the ring shape, as women enjoy the jewelry element of wearables.

But he continued: “The other factor, of course, is a general move away from patriarchy in many forms in medicine.” Whether that’s the gaslighting of someone who’s going through something and saying, “Well, it’ll be okay, leave yours.” “Just take it easy,” or that doctors prescribe too many contraceptives because they’re afraid you won’t take it regularly.

“There are all these things where women say, ‘You know what? My body, my choice. I will own my health experience and I will do it regardless of the patriarchy.” Oura has strangely become emblematic of that.”

While Hale wants to make it easy for women to delete their data from the Oura platform, he questioned whether this was a response to political rhetoric rather than a genuine threat.

Additionally, location data could pose a greater evidentiary risk than time period information, he added, saying data deletion should be “fairly sufficient” to reassure users.

“I don’t know of any case where anyone’s biometric data is being disputed or used against (people),” Hale added. “It’s probably more of a statement about the political atmosphere. Nevertheless, it is important to reduce this risk to zero if possible.”

Of course, Hale and Oura’s privacy code doesn’t just apply to people who want to keep their cycle information to themselves.

“As a healthcare company, our job is to support you on behalf of your health,” Hale said. “We are not there to serve insurers, we are not there to serve advertisers. We are not there to serve our own ecosystem because we don’t have an ecosystem.

“Our goal is solely your health. I think the reality is that the only way to measure this is trust, and trust comes because we get it right more often than most wearables. We do it so right that you think, ‘I think I can trust this,’ and that’s really powerful.”