As war, political instability and mass displacement disrupt sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services at the same time as abortion rights face renewed assault, non-profits are stepping in with digital health tools. “Femtech,” defined as a category of health-care products, software and tools to address reproductive and hormonal health, typically marketed toward women, includes menstrual and fertility tracking, contraception, pregnancy and postpartum support, safe abortion information and gender-based violence reporting. This article will focus on femtech built for menstrual health, contraception and abortion-related support, which also happens to be some of the most concerning when it comes to governance.
In many countries, these femtech tools have become lifelines for women, girls and LGBTQ+ people in crisis. They are filling urgent gaps left by collapsing health systems, but the support they offer is far from guaranteed. Such apps promise empowerment: a way to track cycles, access contraception information or find discreet abortion support in hostile legal contexts. Yet their foundations are fragile. No global governance framework ensures that humanitarian SRH apps protect users’ privacy, remain available beyond a grant cycle or deliver reliable content.
In our research, we have coined the term “humanitarian femtech.” It refers to reproductive and sexual health technologies created in non-profit, activist or aid settings but shaped by humanitarian logics — building legitimacy with donors and publics, depending on unstable external funding and facing contested accountability. Apps such as Oky, Euki and HerPride illustrate both promise and fragility. Unlike commercial femtech, such as the app Flo, so-called humanitarian femtech apps rarely monetize intimate data, but their survival still hinges on donor priorities, and privacy protections vary widely.
Fragile Foundations
Oky, piloted by UNICEF in Mongolia and Indonesia, builds credibility through participatory co-design with adolescent girls and partnerships with national ministries. Yet its long-term future depends on donor funding, and some user demographics and menstrual data are stored on UNICEF servers to enable account syncing across devices. Euki, by Women Help Women and Ibis Reproductive Health, keeps data local and is praised by privacy advocates, yet it remains grant-funded and vulnerable to boom-and-bust aid cycles. HerPride, designed to tackle period poverty and gender-based violence, relies on third-party analytics, including Google, raising questions about data flows and accountability.
Design must be equity-driven, meaning that affected users share decision-making power rather than being consulted only after the fact.
These cases expose a governance vacuum. Global digital health strategies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020–2025 emphasize safety and interoperability but omit SRH apps built for displaced or marginalized users. Global humanitarian standards generally focus on clinical care and not on digital tools. This includes elements such as the Minimum Initial Service Package, which identifies priority SRH interventions to be implemented at the onset of humanitarian crises, including contraception and maternal care. Lastly, feminist foreign policy frameworks champion bodily autonomy but lack procurement and oversight tools for SRH apps.
The stakes of inaction are clear. Sensitive menstrual and abortion data has already been subpoenaed or leaked, as regulators’ crackdowns on apps such as Flo in Canada, the United States and Europe show. In humanitarian settings where legal protections are weaker and devices are often shared, the risks are multiplied. When donor priorities shift, platforms can vanish overnight. Abrupt shutdowns and opaque data practices erode trust and safety for the very communities these tools aim to support. Without standards for participatory design and cultural adaptation, apps can also reflect donor-driven design assumptions that define a narrow idea of the “typical user,” overlooking trans, non-binary, migrant or less tech-savvy users across regions.
Protecting Dignity and Standards
Despite current challenges, a better approach is within reach. Donors should fund beyond pilot phases, mandate transition strategies and support handover to local partners or integration with public health systems. Design must also be equity-driven, meaning that affected users share decision-making power rather than being consulted only after the fact. This is especially important for people in vulnerable situations, including adolescents, LGBTQ+ individuals and users in restrictive legal settings. In practice, this could mean designing apps that recognize shared-device use while protecting privacy, such as offering PIN-protected local profiles, quick-exit features to enable users to conceal their use of the app or offline functionality for areas with unstable connectivity.
A voluntary digital SRH humanitarian code could turn these principles into clear and actionable benchmarks. The code could be modelled on the Sphere standards, which focus on minimum humanitarian standards and accountability to protect dignity and rights, but could also tailored to include standards to protect intimate data and reproductive autonomy. These standards should include minimum privacy and security standards for SRH apps: data minimization, local or encrypted storage by default, explicit user consent and strict limits on third-party analytics. A SRH code could also prohibit the commercialization of users’ health and personal data, including by marketers and health researchers.
While enforceability is a perennial concern with voluntary frameworks, continued government or donor funding could be made conditional on compliance, and independent audits by arms-length bodies or academic institutions could help ensure transparency. Led by feminist foreign policy actors in Canada and the European Union, in collaboration with the WHO and major donors, the code would establish a shared baseline for privacy, equity and continuity, ensuring that humanitarian femtech protects not only data but also users’ dignity.
Global health and humanitarian policy makers now have a chance to lead. Recognizing humanitarian femtech as a field needing clear standards and durable funding could turn today’s patchwork of pilots into a safer, more just digital infrastructure for reproductive autonomy. Without decisive action, intimate health data will stay precarious, and digital support in crises will remain dangerously fragile.
