Pregnancy brings physical, emotional, and economic challenges for expectant parent(s), close relatives, and friends. Existing technology support, including tracking technology, largely targets pregnant people and ignores other stakeholders. We therefore lack an understanding of how to approach designing collaborative pregnancy tracking technology. To understand how people collaborate around pregnancy tracking and wish to do so, we interviewed 13 pregnant people and 11 non-pregnant stakeholders in the U.S., including partners, friends, and grandparents-to-be. We find that people collaborate for goals like social bonding and jointly managing various pregnancy data. Stakeholders collaborated by either dividing up data types or collectively monitoring the same information. We also identify tensions and challenges, such as pregnant people's privacy concerns and stakeholders' varied levels of interest in tracking. In light of socio-cultural norms and stakeholders' distinctive roles around pregnancy, we point to opportunities for designing collaborative technology that aligns with as well as challenges socio-cultural practices around pregnancy tracking.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642652
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade gave states the license to ban abortion, numerous people in US have grown to worry about privacy in using period and fertility tracking apps. To address these concerns, some app companies have issued public statements to engage in privacy communication with their users. Prior literature has investigated period and fertility tracking apps’ data practices in their privacy policies. However, there remains a dearth of knowledge regarding how companies use privacy communication to address historic privacy-related events such as the overturn. To address the gap, this study investigated app companies’ public statements addressing the overturn of Roe using a combined approach of thematic and discourse analysis. Our findings revealed that companies strategically emphasize their commitment to privacy by demonstrating how their business practices and values are closely intertwined with their efforts to protect user data. We conclude by discussing translatable implications for privacy research.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642384
The overturn of Roe v. Wade has taken away the constitutional right to abortion. Prior work shows that period-tracking apps' data practices can be used to detect pregnancy and abortion, hence putting women at risk of being prosecuted. It is unclear how much women know about the privacy practices of such apps and how concerned they are after the overturn. Such knowledge is critical to designing effective strategies for stakeholders to enhance women's reproductive privacy. We conducted an online 183-participant vignette survey with US women from states with diverse policies on abortion. Participants were significantly concerned about the privacy practices of the period-tracking apps, such as data access by law enforcement and third parties. However, participants felt uninformed and powerless about risk mitigation practices. We provide several recommendations to enhance women's privacy awareness toward their period-tracking practices.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642042
It has always been challenging for teens to access consistent and reliable information about their reproductive health. But we know little about the impact of recent changes to laws governing sex education and the right to abortion on teen reproductive health information seeking and sharing. We conducted interviews with 15 teens finding that, post-Roe, teens are concerned about risks of their reproductive health data, particularly as it relates to what they search and share on social media and period tracking apps. Different assessments of risk, related to sexual activity, state laws, social context, and cultural and family values, dictate information practices. But social risk (like being harassed or doxxed) is the biggest driver of information seeking and sharing practices among mostly non sexually active teens. We describe the complexities of teens navigating reproductive health post-Roe as well as offer some guidance about teen technology and privacy literacy.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3641934
Now that the protections of Roe v. Wade are no longer available throughout the United States, the free flow of personal data can be used by legal authorities to provide evidence of felony. However, we know little about how impacted individuals approach their reproductive privacy in this new landscape. We conducted interviews with 15 individuals who may get/were pregnant to address this gap. While nearly all reported deleting period tracking apps, they were not willing to go much further, even while acknowledging the risks of generating data. Quite a few considered a more inhospitable, Handmaid’s Tale like climate in which their medical history and movements would put them in legal peril but felt that, by definition, this reality was insuperable, and also that they were not the target—the notion that privileged location, stage of life did not make them the focus of government or vigilante efforts. We also found that certain individuals (often younger and/or with reproductive risks) were more attuned to the need to modify their technology or equipped to employ high and low-tech strategies. Using an intersectional lens, we discuss implications for media advocacy and propose privacy intermediation to frame our thinking about reproductive privacy.