The Potential Risks and Concerns in Calmara’s Proposed STI Detection Method through Genital Photographs

You’ve found yourself back at home after a date from Tinder, the situation seems to be intensifying. You trust this individual you barely know even less than you desire acquiring a sexually transmitted infection (STI), what do you do next?

An enterprise by the name of Calmara proposes that you take a picture of the gentleman’s private parts, subsequently utilize its artificial intelligence to inform you whether your partner is “clean” or not.

Let’s not toy around and be straightforward: You should never photograph someone’s private parts and employ an AI tool to determine whether to become intimate with them or not.

The assumption underpinning Calmara raises more scepticism than an awful first date, it further deteriorates as you realize that the lion’s share of STIs manifest no symptoms. Therefore, your partner might be harboring an STI, yet Calmara could inform you that he’s safe. This precisely explains why actual STI tests favor blood and urine samples for infection detection, rather than a visual inspection.

Other startups are addressing the need for accessible STI testing in a more responsible way.

“With lab diagnosis, sensitivity and specificity are two key measures that help us understand the test’s propensity for missing infections and for false positives,” Daphne Chen, founder of TBD Health, informed TechCrunch. “There’s always some level of fallibility, even with highly rigorous tests, but test manufacturers like Roche are upfront with their validation rates for a reason — so clinicians can contextualize the results.”

In the fine print, Calmara advises that its findings should not replace medical advice. However, its marketing seems to imply the opposite. Before TechCrunch contacted Calmara, the title of its website read: “Calmara: Your Intimate Bestie for Unprotected Sex” (it’s since been updated to say “Safer Sex” instead.) And in a promotional video, it proclaims itself as “The PERFECT WEBSITE for HOOKING UP!”

Co-founder and CEO Mei-Ling Lu conveyed to TechCrunch that Calmara was not intended as a serious medical tool. “Calmara is a lifestyle product, not a medical app. It doesn’t include any medical conditions or discussions within its framework, and no medical doctors are involved with the current Calmara experience. It’s a freemium information service.”

“We are updating the communications to better reflect our intentions right now,” Lu added. “The clear idea is to initiate a conversation regarding STI status and testing.”

Calmara is part of HeHealth, which was founded in 2019. Calmara and HeHealth use the same AI, which it says is 65-90% accurate. HeHealth is framed as a first step for assessing sexual health; then, the platform 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 that’s a low bar — and even then, there’s a giant red flag waving: data privacy.

“It’s good to see that they offer an anonymous mode, where you don’t have to link your photos to personally identifiable information,” Valentina Milanova, founder of tampon-based STI screening startup Daye, told TechCrunch. “This, however, doesn’t mean that their service is de-identified or anonymized, as your photos might still be traced back to your email or IP address.”

HeHealth and Calmara assert compliance with HIPAA, a regulation that safeguards patient confidentiality, attributing this to their use of Amazon Web Services. While this assertion offers a semblance of comfort, Calmara’s privacy policy discloses that it shares user information with ‘service providers and partners’ that assist with data hosting, analytics, marketing, payment processing, and security. There’s no clarity on if these AI scans take place on user devices or in the cloud, how long such data remains in the cloud, and its usage. This leaves substantial ambiguity, leading to doubts in the mind of a user about the safety of intimate pictures.

The security concerns go beyond just users and pose a risk for the company itself. What if a minor were to use the website for STI checks? This would lead to Calmara inadvertently possessing illegal material involving a minor. Calmara’s method to avoid such ethical and legal liabilities is to explicitly state in its terms of service that the usage by minors is prohibited. But such a defense would not stand any scrutiny in a court of law.

What Calmara represents is the risk that comes with overblown technology. It appears more as a promotional strategy by HeHealth to harness the hype around AI. The reality is that it gives its users a misguided sense of assurance about their sexual health, opening them up to serious consequences.

“The arena of sexual health is complex for innovation. Although I can see good intentions behind their actions,” mentions Chen, “I strongly feel that they’ve rushed into the market with a solution that is still raw and needs more work.”

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