Samsung Health: Samsung discriminating against women by deleting all women's Samsung Health data

[userk0NYcLkj7y]

2023/01/12 at 05:42 PST Thursday

Samsung Health: Samsung discriminating against women by deleting all women's Samsung Health data according to Women's health data backup policy change

I noticed a "[Notice] Women's health data backup policy change" in the Samsung Health app's Notices section. Although I am a man, I felt disappointed in the notice because it announces that Samsung will begin to discriminate against women by Samsung deleting any women's health data and not backing up that data. Samsung says the policy change begins on January 16, 2023. To me, that shows that Samsung will begin to discriminate against women, which violates Samsung's own Community Guidelines against discrimination, which one can apply to the Samsung corporation. Samsung needs to rescind its immoral policy change.

Below, I have included the complete "[Notice] Women's health data backup policy change", I have attached a screenshot that shows the notice, and I have included the relevant section against discrimination from the Samsung Community: General Guidelines.

[Notice] Women's health data backup policy change

1/12/2023

Hello.

Thank you very much for using Samsung Health.

Our data backup policy will change starting January 16, 2023. Please note that any Women's health data you have backed up on Samsung Health will be deleted, and Samsung Health will no longer support data backups for Women's health data. This also means data synchronization across multiple devices will no longer be supported.

You can still safely transfer this data through Smart Switch when changing devices, or transfer data from your PC to your app via Smart Switch for PC.

We always keep our customers' privacy in mind, and will try to provide a better experience to our customers in the future.

Thank you.

Samsung Community: General Guidelines

Discrimination and Shaming: This community is about support and learning therefore any display of negative treatment towards others is unacceptable and subject to removal. 

• No Personal Attacks/Rants abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous or hateful speech
• Discrimination: attacks based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or political affiliation

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[quacc]

Huh i wouldnt expect something like this from a big company because they would be dead in the water pulling something like this off purely to hate on women. I think theres just gotta be something else going on because it just doesnt make sense. And womens samsung health is seperate for women things like period so they are taking away regular samsung health from women. But this situation is quite ods

[JVN1005]

I believe this is actually an effort to protect women's privacy rights, as some states with strict anti-abortion laws are using this information to prosecute women.

[Rydah]

While I don't speak for Samsung, I agree with @JVN1005. There has been some issues with government agencies using these types of data against women. This sounds like Samsung's way of protecting it's users from any possible trouble down the road.

I apologize for any trouble this may cause however it's probably for the greater good.

[WitchDoc907]

That's how I took it and I appreciate them deleting backup data. It may suck for those who depend on that backup data, but this makes it more private. The more privacy in these times for women, the better.

[TipsyTrex]

This is to protect women from the insane behavior of religious zealots in state goverment who believe that women exist as breeders, and in a clear and blatant violation of 3rd and 4th amendment rights, have recently crafted laws allowing them to requisition private, personal and revealing information from corporations about individuals for the singular purpose of persecution. I don't think Samsung is doing anything heroic by throwing out the data, but they should be complimented for not being total dirtbags and handing it over to the loonies.

[Old-Man]

I saw the notice and said, "this feels awfully specific", but the possibility mentioned above seems plausible but equally narrow. Even in the US, there are 48 states and not all have aggressive abortion laws. And Samsung is a global company - so everyone is out of luck? It is unfortunate they couldn't leverage technology to allow people who want to track this in states/regions where it isn't a concern . If they can send me texts when they see my phone is passing McDonalds, then they should be able to allow people to do things in areas where they can safely and without fear. A shame if it appears Samsung opted for the "scorched earth" approach. Hope it is temporary till they sort out something better.

[userk0NYcLkj7y]

2023/01/13 at 06:11 PST Friday

This is my response for everyone who responded:

Samsung should be able to use end-to-end encryption and store the synced Samsung Health data as encrypted data on its servers.  Apple does that with Standard data protection for iCloud and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud.  If Samsung did what Apple does, then Samsung would not have to comply with any legal request for women's health data, and men's health data, because the data would be encrypted, which would protect women's privacy and men's privacy. 

I quote the relevant paragraph that describes how Apple protects Health data from the Standard data protection for iCloud section:

"Standard data protection

[Paragraph not quoted]

For additional privacy and security, 14 data categories — including Health and passwords in iCloud Keychain — are end-to-end encrypted. Apple doesn't have the encryption keys for these categories, and we can't help you recover this data if you lose access to your account. The table below includes a list of data categories that are always protected by end-to-end encryption."

Unfortunately, Samsung has chosen to discriminate against women by destroying women's health data instead of protecting women's health data using encryption like Apple.  In my opinion, Samsung has made a stupid and immoral choice by discriminating against women.  Samsung needs to make the intelligent and moral choice by using encryption to protect everyone's health data like Apple.

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[JaceTelenovela]

Okay so outside of not doing the encryption to protect the data what do I do as a woman to save all the years of tracking 🤔? Screenshot all the months and back it up to my PC? At this point I as a woman need a solution to this now issue that has become my problem 🙃

[userk0NYcLkj7y]

2023/01/13 at 06:26 PST Friday

Go to the Settings menu on your Samsung Health app.  Go to the bottom of the "Samsung Health settings" screen and press on "Download personal data".  On the "Download personal data" screen press on the "Download" button.

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