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Flo Anonymous Mode Explained: What It Actually Protects

Flo launched Anonymous Mode in 2022 after Dobbs. It removes your name from server data but doesn't change where data lives. Here's what it covers.

Flo launched Anonymous Mode in September 2022, three months after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. The feature arrived at a moment when users were actively asking whether a period tracker could be used as evidence in a state investigation. Flo's answer was Anonymous Mode. We built Floriva because we kept finding the same gap when we read through how Anonymous Mode actually works. It does one specific thing. It does not do several other things that its name suggests. And the distinction between those two categories is exactly the distinction between policy based privacy and architectural privacy. What Anonymous Mode actually changes Anonymous Mode removes your name and email from the cycle data stored on Flo's servers. For users who opt in, period dates, symptoms, and pregnancy data are stored on Flo's infrastructure without the direct identifiers Flo would otherwise hold alongside them. That is the full scope of the change. It is a server side labeling change. Flo's engineering team stops attaching your name and email to the records your app uploads. Flo positions Anonymous Mode as a response to the post Dobbs risk environment. The feature description emph