You’ve gone on a date on Tinder and things are escalating. You don’t really know or trust this person, and you don’t want to get an STI, so…what now?
A company called Calmara wants you to take a picture of the guy’s penis and then uses its artificial intelligence to tell you whether your partner is “clear.”
Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat: You shouldn’t be taking a picture of anyone’s genitals and scanning it with an AI tool to decide whether you should have sex.
Kalmara’s premise has more red flags than a bad first date, but it gets even worse when you consider that most STDs are asymptomatic. So, your partner most likely has an STI, but Kalmara will tell you he doesn’t. That’s why actual STI testing uses blood and urine samples to detect infection, rather than a visual inspection.
Other startups are filling the need for accessible STD testing in a more responsible way.
“For laboratory diagnostics, sensitivity and specificity are two key metrics that help us understand the likelihood of a test missing detections and false positives,” Daphne Chen, founder of TBD Health, told TechCrunch. “Even highly rigorous tests can There is always a degree of error, but test manufacturers like Roche publish their validation rates in advance so clinicians can combine the results.”
Kalmara warned in the fine print that its findings should not replace medical advice. But its marketing suggests otherwise. Before TechCrunch contacted Calmara, its website was titled: “Calmara: Your BFF for Unprotected Sex” (later updated to “Safer Sex.”) In a promotional video, the company describes itself as ” The perfect dating site!”
Co-founder and CEO Mei-Ling Lu told TechCrunch that Calmara is not a serious medical tool. “Calmara is a lifestyle product, not a medical app. It does not involve any discussion of medical conditions or their framework, nor is a doctor involved in the current experience of Calmara. It is a free information service.”
“We are updating communications to better reflect our current intentions,” Lu added. “The clear idea is to initiate a conversation about STI status and testing.”
Calmara is part of HeHealth, which was founded in 2019. Calmara and HeHealth use the same artificial intelligence and are said to be 65-90% accurate. HeHealth is considered the first step in assessing sexual health; the platform then helps users connect with partner clinics in their area to schedule an appointment for an actual comprehensive screening.
HeHealth’s approach is more reassuring than Calmara’s, but the bar is low — and even so, there’s still one huge red flag: data privacy.
“It’s nice to see they offer an anonymous mode where you don’t have to link the photo to personally identifiable information,” Valentina Milanova, founder of tampon-based STI screening startup Daye, told TechCrunch. “However, this does not mean that their service is de-identified or anonymized, as your photos may still be traceable to your email or IP address.”
HeHealth and Calmara also claim that they comply with HIPAA, a regulation that protects patient confidentiality, because they use Amazon Web Services. That sounds reassuring, but Kalmara writes in its privacy policy that it shares user information with “service providers and partners who assist in the operation of the service, including data hosting, analytics, marketing, payment processing and security.” They also don’t specify whether these AI scans are performed on your device or in the cloud, and if so, how long the data is retained in the cloud and what it is used for. This is a bit too vague to reassure users that their intimate photos are safe.
These security issues are not only dangerous to users, but also dangerous to the company itself. What happens if a minor uses this site to check for sexually transmitted infections? Kalmara then ended up in possession of child sexual abuse material. Calmara responded to this moral and legal responsibility by writing in its terms of service that minors are prohibited from using it, but this defense has no legal effect.
Calmara represents the dangers of overhyped technology: It seems like a publicity stunt by HeHealth to capitalize on the excitement of artificial intelligence, but in practice it just gives users a false sense of security about their sexual health. These consequences are serious.
“Sexual health is a tricky area to innovate, and I can see that their intentions are noble,” Chen said. “I just think they may be bringing solutions to market too quickly that are not yet mature.”
