London, May 2, 2023 – Flo Health, the most popular women’s health app globally with 50 million monthly active users, is today announcing that its Anonymous Mode feature has been named a finalist in Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards, Rapid Response category. The recognition celebrates Flo’s commitment to protecting its users’ privacy, specifically for women in post-Roe America, and continues building upon the company’s past achievements in this space, including its ISO 27001 certification.
Anonymous Mode, which set a new standard for data privacy and security for women’s health apps, was selected by a panel of Fast Company editors and reporters from a pool of more than 2,200 entries across a range of industries and disciplines. The prestigious awards, now in their seventh year, are aimed at highlighting and honoring creative solutions to some of the biggest issues facing the world today.
Flo created Anonymous Mode as a direct response to its users’ concerns following the overturn of Roe v Wade. The feature protects their sensitive reproductive health information by allowing them to use the app without their name, email, or technical identifiers (including IP address) being associated with the health data in their account. Built rapidly and rolled out to all users in September 2022, it integrates Cloudflare’s Oblivious HTTP system, App Relay Gateway, which ensures that no single party processing user data for Anonymous Mode accounts has complete information on both who the user is and what they are trying to access. Regardless of whether a user chooses to utilize Anonymous Mode, all user data remains subject to Flo’s leading privacy and security protections including data encryption and third-party audits.
“Millions of users turn to Flo Health for personalized health insights about their bodies. As we near the one year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v Wade, women deserve to track their body signals, access medically-credible information, and gain these personalized insights without concerns about their right to privacy or the security of their information,” said Roman Bugaev, Chief Technology Officer at Flo Health. “To have Anonymous Mode recognized in Fast Company’s Rapid Response category is a testament to both our partner, Cloudflare, and the Flo team’s dedication to create a privacy-focused feature for women in America and around the world. We hope Anonymous Mode continues to set an example for the industry and inspire companies to raise the bar when it comes to privacy and security principles.”
The recognition from Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards follows on from another major privacy and security accolade for Flo in less than a year. In August 2022, Flo became the first period and ovulation tracker to receive the ISO 27001 certification, the internationally recognized standard for information security. In order to become ISO 27001 certified, the company evaluated its security procedures, tested all controls across 14 domains, reviewed its comprehensive training and policies for all staff, and completed rigorous audits performed by external auditors. The effort to ensure Flo’s robust security practices were audit-ready took nine months, and Flo passed this international certification standard with a score of 100%. Achieving this certification means that Flo protects the integrity and confidentiality of user data, against risks, such as cyberattacks, hacks, data leaks, and theft, at the highest standard possible. Flo Health plans to encourage others in the industry to achieve ISO 27001 certification, making it the norm for the healthtech industry. The sensitive information that users trust companies with should be protected so that they can engage in services without concern.
Flo Health also recently established its Privacy & Security Advisory Board by inviting five top experts across the legal, data security and information technology fields. The board members work in collaboration with Flo’s in-house team by identifying emerging privacy and security challenges and starting conversations that encourage the entire health tech industry to rethink its approach to privacy and security practices.
About Flo Health: Flo is the most popular women’s health app globally; it is #1 OB-GYN-recommended app for period and cycle tracking based on a survey among US OB-GYNs. Over 280 million people have downloaded Flo, and 50 million people use it on a monthly basis. With over 100+ medical experts, Flo supports women during their entire reproductive lives and provides curated cycle and ovulation tracking, personalized health insights, expert tips, and a fully closed community for women to share their questions and concerns. Flo prioritizes safety and keeps a sharp focus on being the most trusted digital source for women's health information. Flo health app is available in more than 20 languages on iOS and Android. For more information, please visit https://flo.health.
About the World Changing Ideas Awards: World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.