In recent years, the use of technological means for health and sports needs has increased, including a very large variety of applications that offer users to monitor their physical training routine, monitor their eating habits, sleeping habits and more. These applications collect data about us in real time and even transmit this data to third-party servers, thus posing a threat to users’ privacy. These measures also include wearable devices that collect personal data such as physiological information such as blood pressure, counting steps using special sensors and thus increasing the risk to the privacy of their users.
These means are easy to download and use are friendly and convenient. Despite their many benefits, these measures usually collect a great deal of sensitive information, as defined in the Privacy Protection Act. The concern is that insufficient information security, or the transfer of information to third parties interested in it, may infringe on users’ privacy. Can be cross-referenced with personal information from other sources, such as drug companies, thereby also infringing on users’ privacy.
After analyzing the privacy policy documents of major health and fitness applications currently in operation, and of wearable devices for sports and health purposes, the Authority publishes two related documents that review the range of common uses of technological means for health and sports, presents the main risks to user privacy and provides recommendations for proper conduct. Reduce invasion of privacy when using them.
Why should you pay attention?
The Privacy Protection Authority has issued a series of recommendations to the public, in order to conduct itself properly and reduce the invasion of privacy when using health and fitness applications and wearable devices such as heart rate monitors and sports.
When installing the app, check the reliability of the app and its level of information security, try to evaluate the quality and content of the app on the website of the application developer. To do this, look for user reviews through the app store or across the web.
2. Try to download apps only from official app stores of the major operating systems. Carefully read the app’s privacy policy if one exists. Please note, if the app does not have a website, it may not have a privacy policy. Find all the relevant contact details and if necessary contact the developer with questions.
3. Limit the amount of personal information you provide as part of using the app. Some apps allow you to try out their applications without entering any personal information. Take advantage of this opportunity when it is offered to decide if you want to continue using the app.
Do not share the information on social media Photo: shutterstock
4. Examine whether you intend to share the information on social networks. Many apps allow and even encourage users to share sensitive information through social networks. Please note that once you have decided to share the information, it will be accessible to all in accordance with your privacy settings on social networks, and will in fact be out of your control.
5. While using the app, be sure to implement security updates posted by the app operator to ensure that it is protected from new security risks. Try to keep track of the app’s access permissions, even when downloading software updates. If the permissions have been expanded to the extent that it is against your wishes – consider deleting the user account and the application.
Check the privacy settings
6. End of use of the application – Have you stopped using the application? Delete it. This is the only way to ensure that the app has stopped performing actions such as broadcasting your location or interacting with other applications on the device.
7. Note that in many applications your information is saved even after deleting the account. If you stopped using the app, see if you can delete both your personal profile and the data archive you created using the app. If you want to save data that you have already entered separately, many applications offer the option to download your data and save it as a file.
Locate the privacy settings in several locations – Do not just check the privacy settings on the device itself. Usually, the privacy settings will appear in three places: on the device itself, in the application linked to the device on your phone and any web portal that may be linked to the service. It is also advisable to check the settings on all social media platforms or when creating new accounts.
9. Check the privacy settings on the wearable device – When we get a new device, the tendency is to go through the installation process as quickly as possible, and skip steps, to start using it immediately. Carefully go through all the installation steps, as accepting the default settings for privacy on the device may infringe on your privacy. For example, it is important to check whether the device collects and shares your statistics and locations. In some cases wearable devices are connected to social networks. Therefore pay attention to whether the device shares your medical data with others, shares publicly, shares with “friends” only, or does not share at all. Consider carefully whether to let others know your running route or the times you are in certain places.
10. Consider disabling location tracking – Most wearable devices perform geographic location tracking, whether on the device or the app associated with the device. The easiest way to protect yourself may be to simply turn off geographical location tracking on your device.
In order to reduce the collection of information, you can perform a number of actions: Choose strong privacy settings that will allow you to reduce the available data to additional factors, turn off the device at the end of use. While the device is off, no information will be collected. If you no longer need the device, make sure all personal information is permanently removed. Note that this may involve more than resetting a device to factory settings.