Hong Kong Developer's suspicious 'Blood Sugar' App Reaches 293,000 in EU Through 210 Meta Ads

About 210 active Meta ads urging users to "Monitor your blood sugar" lead to Beatly: Blood Pressure & Sugar, a Google Play app with more than 5 million installs whose own description says it "does not measure blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, or any medical data directly". One ad reached an estimated 293,126 EU accounts. The payer is a Hong Kong subsidiary of a Chinese advertising group. No phone camera can measure blood glucose.

Threat Research Team | 28 October 2026

About 210 active ads on Meta's platforms tell users in Europe and beyond that they can "Monitor your blood sugar" with a free phone app. The Google Play app the ads point to, Beatly: Blood Pressure & Sugar, which has more than 5 million installs, states in its own description that it "does not measure blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, or any medical data directly".

The Threat Research Team reviewed the ads in Meta's Ad Library, the app's Play Store listing, its privacy policy and terms, and 235 one-star user reviews. No smartphone camera can measure blood glucose, and health regulators have warned that relying on such readings can lead to dangerous dosing errors.

Key findings

About 210 active ads run from a Meta Page named Beatly0113. One sample ad reached an estimated 293,126 accounts in the EU, according to its Ad Library transparency panel.
The ads say "Monitor your blood sugar". The app's description disclaims any measurement, while its latest "What's new" note says it "helps you monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar".
Of 235 one-star reviews collected, about 133 complain about intrusive ads and at least 14 say the blood-sugar claim is false.
The Play Data safety label says "No data collected", while the privacy policy says the app may process a device identifier and crash diagnostics.
The listing shows zero two-star ratings out of 18,556, an unusual distribution that is not in itself proof of manipulation.
Meta's disclaimer names as advertiser and payer a Hong Kong company that a listed Chinese advertising group reports as its subsidiary. It appears to be acting as media buyer and is not the app developer.

Figure 1. Meta Ad Library, Page Beatly0113: about 210 active ads, each card reading "Monitor your blood sugar" and "Heart Rate Monitoring".

Why the claim matters

Measuring blood glucose requires a blood sample, from a finger-prick meter or a lab test, or a continuous glucose monitor with a sensor under the skin. The US Food and Drug Administration warned in February 2024 that it has not authorised any smartwatch or smart ring that measures blood glucose without piercing the skin, and that inaccurate readings can lead to wrong insulin doses, dangerously low blood sugar, coma or death.

A phone app cannot do what those devices cannot. Any "sugar reading" it shows is either a number the user typed in or a value the app generated. Camera-based pulse estimation is a recognised technique, but its accuracy varies, and phone cameras are not a validated way to measure blood pressure.

The ads

The Page Beatly0113 (ID 890185040854458, category Software, about 496 followers) shows about 210 active ads. The ad cards read "Monitor your blood sugar" above the line "Heart Rate Monitoring" and an "Install now" button that leads to Google Play. In the 29 ads loaded for review, start dates ranged from 10 April to 29 September 2026.

The sample ad, library ID 1742071290152169, shows a hand holding a lateral-flow rapid-test cassette, the kind used for pregnancy or infection tests, under the text "Monitor your blood sugar". It has been active since 22 July 2026 across Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger and Threads, targeting ages 20 to 65 and over, all genders. Another ad from the same Page, library ID 1073025088784940, carries the on-screen text "FREE ONLINE PREGNANCY TEST TRY IT NOW".

Figure 2. Sample ad 1742071290152169: "Monitor your blood sugar" over a video of a rapid-test cassette.

Meta estimates the sample ad reached 293,126 accounts in the EU. Its largest audiences were women aged 25 to 34, about 90,300, and 35 to 44, about 80,900; breakdown figures are approximate and per-country rows sum to about 304,900. The biggest country audiences were:

Italy 43,234; Romania 38,806; Germany 34,056; France 33,593
Spain 22,902; Poland 16,635; Portugal 12,901; Slovakia 12,891
Bulgaria 12,524; Hungary 12,351; Greece 11,120; Mayotte 10,197

Figure 3. EU delivery for ad 1742071290152169: targeting ages 20 to 65+, all genders, estimated reach 293,126.

The campaign is not limited to Europe. Filtering the Ad Library by country shows roughly 160 active ads each in the United States and Brazil, about 140 in Indonesia, 130 in Mexico, 120 each in Britain, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Turkey, and smaller numbers in Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the Philippines. None were shown for India, Bangladesh or Pakistan. Meta publishes reach figures only for EU delivery.

Who pays for the ads

Under the ad's Singapore disclosure, Meta names GLOBAL INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION GROUP HOLDINGS LIMITED (Hong Kong company number 2307615) as advertiser and payer, with a Hong Kong location and the website gimc-hk.com. Guangdong Advertising Group (Shenzhen-listed, 002400) lists the company as a subsidiary in its 2025 annual report. It appears to be acting as the media-buying agency and is not the app developer. Media buyers typically place ads on clients' behalf, and there is no indication the agency knows how the app performs.

The separate "Advertiser and payer" field for the same ad currently reads Beatly0625, while the ad runs from Beatly0113. The numbering suggests a series of similarly named Pages; how many exist has not been established.

Figure 4. Disclaimer and advertiser details for ad 1742071290152169: advertiser and payer GLOBAL INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION GROUP HOLDINGS LIMITED; current advertiser and payer field Beatly0625.

What the listing says

The app, package com.heart.beatly.health.tracker, is published by Ark Mobile Tech, listed as Hong Kong Ark Mobile Technology Limited. It sits in Health & Fitness, is rated for everyone, contains ads, and sells in-app items priced at $3.99 to $39.99. It was released on 11 April 2025 and last updated on 17 September 2026, version 1.2.30.

The app's own materials disagree with one another:

Meta ads: "Monitor your blood sugar"
Play description: "Beatly does not measure blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, or any medical data directly."
Play "What's new": "Helps you monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, keeping you healthy at all times."
Privacy policy: the camera is used for a feature that "estimates heart rate or pulse".

The disclaimer appears near the end of a long description that users arriving from an ad may not read. The store screenshots include a stock image of a doctor in a white coat on a "Heart Data Summary Report" screen.

Figure 5. Google Play listing captured on 28 October 2026: 5M+ downloads and a Data safety section stating "No data collected".

The Data safety section states "No data collected" and "No data shared with third parties". The privacy policy says the developer "may process a device identifier and limited technical data", including crash logs and device model, through crash-reporting providers. The policy does not mention advertising partners, although the app is ad-supported. The label and the policy appear inconsistent; without analysing the app itself, the Team cannot confirm what data leaves the device.

What users say

The Team collected 235 unique one-star reviews posted between 4 May 2025 and 26 October 2026 in 12 languages. Theme counts below are approximate keyword matches, and one review can fall under several themes:

Excessive or intrusive ads: about 133
Cannot measure, "fake" or "scam": about 40
Blood-sugar claim false: about 14
Ads interrupt the measurement, which then reports failure: about 12
Identical or implausible readings: about 8
Paywall or subscription charges: about 8

"It cannot measure blood sugar and the ads for it are false advertising," one user wrote on 3 December 2025. "Every bp reading has been exactly the same, 100/45 and pulse is 75," wrote another on 20 March 2026, adding that a cuff gave readings that changed day to day. A third, on 4 December 2025, wrote that according to the app "my red bottle lid also has a heartbeat".

A Spanish-language reviewer wrote that it is "impossible to take blood pressure or pulse with a phone camera" and that the app "puts users' health at serious risk". One Polish reviewer said the app redirected them to send a paid SMS; this is a single unverified report and may involve a third-party ad rather than the app. The developer posted short replies to 38 of the reviews.

The developer's other apps

Ark Mobile Tech lists 10 other apps on Google Play, including Rocket VPN (10M+ installs), ClapLocate (5M+), the camera pulse app CardioLens - Heart Rate (1M+), Fast VPN Pro (1M+), QR scanners, a pill tracker and two walk-to-earn apps. Most carry ads. The developer's contact is a Gmail address, and its terms of use name no company and no governing law.

What users should do

Do not rely on any phone app to measure blood sugar or blood pressure. Use a glucometer, a continuous glucose monitor or a validated cuff, and follow medical advice.
Never change medication or skip a test because of an app reading.
Cancel unwanted subscriptions in Google Play under Payments & subscriptions, and report unexpected premium-SMS charges to your mobile operator.
Report misleading health ads through the "Report ad" option on Facebook or Instagram.

What platforms and regulators can do

Meta: review the Beatly-numbered Pages and any blood-sugar or pregnancy-test creatives against its health and misleading-claims advertising policies.
Google Play: review the listing's "What's new" text against its health-claims and misleading-content policies, check the Data safety declaration against the app's software development kits, and examine the ratings distribution.
EU authorities: the ads reach EU users at scale. Rules on unfair commercial practices, medical-device claims and the Digital Services Act duties of very large platforms may be relevant.
India: no active ads from the Page were shown for India at the time of review. If similar ads reach Indian users, claims about diagnosing or managing diabetes may fall under the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. This is a matter for the competent authorities, not a legal conclusion.

Methodology

All collection on 28 October 2026 was passive and read-only: Meta Ad Library pages, the public Google Play listing, its Data safety and developer pages, the privacy policy and terms, public reviews, and DNS and registration lookups. No ad was clicked, and the app was not installed or analysed. Reach and targeting figures come from one sample ad; start dates come from 29 of about 210 ads; country ad counts are approximate Ad Library filter results.

Indicators

Android app: com.heart.beatly.health.tracker (Beatly)
Android app: com.cardiolens.pulse.camera (sibling camera-pulse app)
Meta Page: Beatly0113, ID 890185040854458
Meta advertiser and payer field: Beatly0625
Meta ads: 1742071290152169 (blood sugar), 1073025088784940 (pregnancy test)
Developer domain: fifavnet.net; app documents on beatly.fifavnet.net
Ad agency (payer, context only, not considered malicious): gimc-hk.com, HK company number 2307615