Is Flo safe? What the FTC case and the 2025 trial actually found

In short: in 2021, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Flo had shared users' health data with marketing and analytics companies, including Facebook and Google, despite promising to keep it private. Flo settled without going to court. In 2025, a US class action over the same data went to trial; Flo settled during the trial, and the jury found Meta liable. Flo has since added privacy features, including an Anonymous Mode. Whether Flo is "safe" for you depends on what you're worried about, and the same questions apply to every period app.

A note before we start: Periodiva is a period tracker too, so we compete with Flo. We've stuck to the public record and linked every source, so you can check it yourself.

What the FTC said in 2021

In June 2021, the FTC finalised an order against Flo Health over its Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker app (FTC). According to the FTC:

• Flo shared sensitive health data from millions of users with marketing and analytics firms, including Facebook and Google.
• It did so despite promising users their health data would stay private.

The order requires Flo to:

• get users' clear consent before sharing their health information with others
• get an independent review of its privacy practices
• tell affected users that their health information was disclosed
• instruct the companies that received the data to destroy it

A settlement like this resolves the FTC's allegations without a court ruling on them.

The 2025 trial

Users also sued Flo, Google, Meta and the analytics company Flurry in a class action, Frasco v. Flo Health, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California (Labaton).

• Google and Flurry agreed to settle before the trial started on July 21, 2025.
• Flo settled on July 31, 2025, during the trial, the day before closing arguments (Bloomberg Law).
• On August 1, 2025, the jury found Meta liable for its role in collecting and using the health data without consent. That verdict applies only to Meta.

The settlements total $59.5 million: $48 million from Google, $8 million from Flo and $3.5 million from Flurry (Paubox). The class covers people who used Flo between November 2016 and February 2019; current users who joined later aren't part of it.

What Flo has changed since

Flo launched Anonymous Mode in 2022, which lets you use the app without your name, email or other identifiers tied to your account (Flo). Flo says it's designed so that no single party ever has both your identity and your health data. The FTC order also now requires Flo to get your consent before sharing health information.

These are Flo's own descriptions of its features. They're meaningful steps, and worth knowing about if you use Flo today.

So, is Flo safe to use?

It depends on what "safe" means to you:

• If you're worried about data being shared for advertising: the FTC order now requires consent first, and Anonymous Mode limits what can be linked to you. Check the app's settings and its current privacy policy.
• If you'd rather your cycle data never sat on a company's servers at all: look at apps that keep data only on your phone. They exist, with fewer features.
• If trust matters more than features: a company's track record is part of the picture, alongside what it promises today.

The real lesson isn't about one app. Period data is sensitive, and the only way to know how an app treats it is to ask the right questions.

Questions to ask any period app

1. How does it make money: subscriptions, or ads and data?
2. Does it contain third-party trackers or advertising tools?
3. Where is your data stored: on your phone, or on its servers?
4. If it has AI features, where do your messages go, and are they used for training?
5. Can you export everything, and does deleting your account really delete everything?

We go through each one, and how to check, in our guide to choosing a private period tracker.

Where Periodiva stands

We don't run ads, we don't use any analytics or advertising trackers, and we never sell your data. Here's exactly how Periodiva handles your data, including what our AI companion Luna sends to Google, and what we don't do yet.