Fitness Trackers Assignment
For this assignment, you will consider the privacy implications of fitness trackers. Since most of these devices connect to cloud services hosted by their manufacturers, the privacy considerations extend beyond the devices themselves.
Assignment Information
The application areas for this assignment are exercise/sport science and medicine. However, you are welcome to choose this assignment if you have an interest in its content, regardless of your major.
Prerequisites
- You should be able to perform Internet searches to locate sources relevant to the topics covered by this assignment.
- You should be able to utilize CCU Library resources to aid in research.
- You should be able to think critically about the claims made in sources that you find.
- You should be able to create a logically organized presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress.
- You should be able to record a video presentation by narrating slides while recording a screencast.
- You should be able to edit the recorded video and upload the result to Moodle.
Background
Fitness trackers are tiny wearable computers that have sensors to measure a person’s activity level, heart rate, and optional other metrics such as blood oxygen level. These devices primarily measure a person’s movements via accelerometers and can detect when a person is sitting, lying down, running, walking, or engaging in other activities. By combining data from multiple sensors, these trackers can distinguish between different kinds of exercise and can even detect sexual activity.
The vast majority of fitness trackers connect to remote services in the cloud (servers that belong to someone else). Connections may be direct and automatic if the fitness tracker has built-in wireless or cellular networking support. Otherwise, the tracker connects via some other method (e.g. Bluetooth) to a phone application that retrieves stored data from the tracker and transmits it to the cloud service.
Most users are blissfully unaware of the inferences that can be drawn from fitness tracker data. Similarly, most users of these devices have also not fully read and understood the license agreements and privacy policies that come with the device and its connected services. Furthermore, some users might share their fitness profiles with others, potentially revealing sensitive information (such as the dates and times at which they engaged in sexual activity) without realizing it.
Even if explicit fitness data sharing is turned off, the companies that provide the cloud services have every financial motivation to collect and sell either the raw data from the trackers or the inferences generated about each user. For example, a user’s fitness data collected over time could reveal the presence of disease even before the person is diagnosed. Companies could use this information to deny insurance coverage, market pharmaceuticals, or (where not specifically illegal) deny someone employment.
Some companies providing tracking services might promise not to disclose an individual user’s data. However, there are always some exceptions. First, most companies will sell “anonymized” or “aggregate” data. By combining “anonymous” data from different sources, it is sometimes possible to de-anonymize and identify users.
A second time in which nearly any company would disclose information is in response to a legal process, since they would be compelled to do so by law. Fitness tracker data might include GPS coordinates that place a person in a certain area or show that a person’s heart rate increased at a certain time, potentially providing evidence against that person. Even if the person is an innocent bystander, so-called geofence warrants can be used to obtain information about every person within a certain geographic area during a given timeframe. A person completely uninvolved in any crime could become a person of interest simply because they happened to be wearing a fitness tracker while exercising in a given area.
Companies may also disclose information involuntarily as a result of illegal processes. A classic example would be a data breach, in which information about one or more customers is stolen from the company. Once stolen and leaked, detailed data from a fitness tracker could be used to reveal sensitive information about customers using devices from the company that was attacked.
For this assignment, you will do some research on the kinds of information fitness trackers can collect, what kinds of inferences can be drawn from those data, and what potential consequences can arise for a person who uses a fitness tracker that uploads data to a service provider. You will also look at some of the service agreements and privacy policies of fitness tracker manufacturers to see what kind of voluntary data sales might be occurring.
Requirements
To begin this assignment, you need to do a few separate pieces of research. You need to consider the following questions:
- What kinds of information are collected by fitness trackers currently on the market?
- Given fitness data collected over days, weeks, months, or years, what inferences can be drawn about the wearer of the fitness tracker? For example, what kinds of medical problems can be detected? What information can be determined about the person’s lifestyle and habits?
- What potential adverse consequences might exist for someone whose data or inferences are made known? Consider both information sharing by the fitness tracker vendor and possible hacks by malicious third parties.
- Find at least 3 popular models of fitness tracker by 3 different companies. Locate the terms of service and privacy policy applicable to each one. When will the company share information, and with whom? To what kinds of uses of the data are customers agreeing when they create an account and activate the fitness tracker?
Prepare presentation slides using Microsoft PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress. Present your findings to the above questions. Draw one or more conclusions about the trustworthiness of fitness trackers and whether or not the privacy trade-offs are acceptable in light of the benefits. Cite sources you use, and be sure to include links to the manufacturer product pages of the 3 models of fitness tracker you review.
Record a screencast video presentation using your slides as visual aids. If your computer is unable to record a screencast video, you may use your cell phone to record your presentation. Try to target a length of 15-20 minutes.
Grading
Please review the Fitness Trackers Rubric prior to uploading your video presentation. This rubric explains how this assignment option will be graded and can be used as a checklist to ensure that you have completed all the required parts of the assignment.
