The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Desi Lydic Explores What Femtech Is Doing With Your Data

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Femtech can help women track everything about their bodies, from pregnancy to periods to kegel exercises. But what are they doing with your data? Desi Lydic investigates these snatch snitchers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. The hottest apps are all about femtech, which is a combination of female and mtec. 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 Linnaeus. I am an obstetrician gynecologist and a reproductive infernologist. And I'm also an egg biologist.

And I also did clinical research on femtech. I am Desilytic and I too am a woman, but much less accomplished. So your 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. 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 the periods? So if you're th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thoome thi, thi, thi, thoomoomoes, tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the, what thi.... thi.. thi. thi. thi.. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. theeeeeea. theea. thean. the can get the treatment that you need for the concerns that you have. 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 going to do? Write it in a diary, hide it under a pillow, then my husband finds it and reads it, publish it, then thi.. th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the the the the the their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, without. She, without. She, without. She, without. She, without. She, without. the their, without. their, without. their, without. their, without, without. their, without. their, without. their, their, their, their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their'm a multi-millionaire 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 th and th and th.. and the th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi's thi's thi's thi, thi, thi's thi's thi. to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. thi. thi. tha is tha. thae is thau. thau. thau. thau. togeu thau thau thau thea. thea. thea. thau. thau. thau thau thathey're the only ones suffering from health conditions, and that's not the case. Yet 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 their data. What do you mean? Well there have been some apps that unfortunately have violated the trust of their users by selling data. Oh man can you imagine if someone put in that they have like two vaginas? 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 kidding me? More than 19 million women in the US have downloaded the flow app, which tracks menstrual

cycles and pregnancies. All of it personal information, but millions of women are now discovering was also shared with other companies. 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 Edith. 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. Edda, I 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 fantasize about the property brothers. How do I know that I'm ever going to be able to trust again?

We have never sold your data. Look, Ed, I want to to th, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I have th, I, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have thia, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have the, I have th. I have th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I, I th. I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have th, I have thi, I have thi, I have the, I have the, I have theateateatea. thateauuia. theauia. theauia. thea. thea, I have thea, I thea to trust again. We have never sold your data and we will never sell your data. Look, Eda, I want to 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 kind of 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 we have really tough regulation and we've been checked, whereas in the US,

you are not being checked. So one good navigation is to see how does this company make money, and if you can't 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. So clearly, FemTEC is a lot like our bodies. We have to stay vigilant to make sure everything is functioning properly.

So until they invent Semtecetech tech to monitor these apps, I guess we'll just have to track them ourselves. Watch the Daily Show, Week nights at 11th Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.