"I Want My Data To Be Used Purposely": Women's Data Relationships with FemTech Apps

Digital health tracking has become foundational to how women understand their bodies, track their cycles, and manage chronic conditions, often through FemTech apps such as period and fertility trackers. However, these widely used platforms can pose heightened privacy and surveillance risks, especially in the post-Dobbs political landscape. Despite the stakes, little is known about how women negotiate, resist, or renegotiate their relationships with these apps. This study examined women’s data relationships with FemTech apps through qualitative analysis of open-ended survey responses from 187 U.S.-based participants collected in a previous study. Our findings reveal that women evaluate FemTech apps through relational qualities, including trust, reciprocity, dignity, and agency. This relational framing reflects how our participants described health data as an extension of the self, implying that it deserves ethical consideration similar to that of the physical body.