Premom App Users’ Data Shared with Chinese Data Collection Entities Without Consent, Class Action Alleges

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Individuals who downloaded the Premom app to smartphones, tablets or laptops running Google’s Andriod operating system had their personal information and location data shared with “at least three known Chinese third-party data collection entities” without their knowledge or consent, a proposed class action alleges. 

The 29-page breach-of-contract lawsuit against defendant Easy Healthcare Corporation alleges the company has violated its own terms of service and privacy policies and the Illinois Consumer Fraud & Deceptive Business Practices Act in sharing without permission user data from the ovulation tracker, period calendar and fertility tool app. 

According to the complaint, Premom users had no knowledge that the app came equipped with a backdoor that allowed for easy data access by supposed Chinese actors. From the suit:

“Defendant deceived the Plaintiff and other Premom app users because, unknowing to them, it directly worked with these three Chinese entities prior to launching the Premom app. Prior to its launch, Defendant coded into the Premom app software the ability for these Chinese entities to access and take Plaintiff’s and Premom app users’ personal information and location data. Defendant did this in exchange for receiving remuneration from these three Chinese entities. While having done this, Defendant misrepresented to Plaintiff and other Premom app users that it would not do so, and in fact, concealed this from them. Such conduct by Defendant is an unfair, immoral, and unscrupulous business practice.” 

Easy Healthcare is described in the complaint as one of the largest online providers of home and workplace healthcare products. Per the suit, the company sells products ranging from thermometers and oximeters to pregnancy and drug tests. 

The defendant’s free-to-download Premom app is billed as “dedicated to helping women get pregnant sooner and naturally.” According to the lawsuit, the app is one of the most popular fertility apps among Android and iOS users, and buyers of Easy Healthcare Corp.’s products are “encouraged to utilize” the Premom app. 

Upon downloading the app, users enter into and agree to the defendant’s “terms of service agreement,” which promises that they’ll be fully informed as to how their personal information will be used, the suit says. In the privacy policy, the plaintiff and other Premom users provided express consent for the defendant to collect, use and disclose their personal information, but only “in the manner described in this Privacy Policy,” the complaint asserts. 

Though the defendant represents that users’ personal information will only be stored on its databases and relays in bullet points how the data will be used, no mention is made of Premom users’ information being shared with any third parties, the lawsuit says. In fact, Easy Healthcare states explicitly that the company will not use Premom app data for any purposes other than those outlined in the privacy policy without first obtaining consent to do so, the suit claims. 

According to the lawsuit, however, the plaintiff learned on or soon after August 20, 2020 that the defendant had been sharing her and other Premom app users’ personal information and location data from the Android OS software with “three Chinese entities.” The case claims this data sharing began as soon as Premom was available for download, back in 2017. 

“This was being done in secrecy without Plaintiff or other Premom app users’ knowledge and consent and in violation of Defendant’s Privacy Policies,” the suit alleges.

The lawsuit says the three Chinese entities with whom Premom app users’ information and location data was shared are Jiguang, also known as Aurora Mobile, Ltd, a data analysis firm.; Umeng, a Bejing company that’s purportedly the leading provider of mobile app analytics in China; and UMSNS, a China-based data collection firm operated by Alibaba Cloud Computing. 

Asserted in the lawsuit is that neither the plaintiff nor any other Premom app users provided consent for the defendant to share their personal information or location data with the Chinese companies. The data allegedly shared by the defendant with the third parties includes geolocation data, device activity specifics, user and advertiser IDs and non-resettable device hardware identifiers, all of which are also known in industry parlance as “persistent identifiers.”

“Combining persistent identifiers with information about where it was observed allows a data collector to reconstruct an individual’s activities,” the suit relays, noting that certain data is shared whether a person is using the Premom app or not. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all individuals in the United States who have downloaded the defendant’s Premom app on a smartphone, tablet or laptop computer with the Android operating system software.

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