What is Google going to do with your Fitbit data? Anything it likes
Fitbit's teams could soon be working on future Pixel watches. But more importantly, what can Google do with all the health and fitness data it's about to own?
In September, there was the first whiff of a doable sale and simply a few months later, Google has introduced it’s obtaining Fitbit for a mentioned $2.1 billion (£1.63bn). Google is getting hardware and software program teams with wearable-tech expertise, such as Pebble smarts, to add to its combined efforts with Wear OS and the $40 million (£30m) really worth of Fossil smartwatch technological know-how it paid for at the start of 2019.
It’s also getting data. A total lot of it; some thing that is undeniably at the heart of this sizable acquisition. But what facts is Google getting? What can Google do with it? And can GDPR or Labour's Tom Watson make any difference?
Fitbit has 28m active users syncing step counts, heart-rate readings, sleep time, menstrual cycles, location and more from their devices. That may want to be the most rewarding component of the deal: person data. It will have no doubt been a purpose Facebook used to be also curiously sniffing round to see if it may want to buy the struggling fitness tracker maker, too. Fitbit sales fell from 22m in 2016 to an estimated 14m in 2018.
Unsurprisingly, both parties have been swift to address the subject of records and privacy in their respective announcements detailing the acquisition. In Fitbit’s press release, it stated: “Fitbit will proceed to put customers in manipulate of their data and will remain obvious about the records it collects and why.” It additionally added: “The organization by no means sells private information, and Fitbit fitness wellbeing facts will not be used for Google ads.”
There had been similar sentiments in a blog post by using Google from Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president of devices and services. “Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be obvious about the facts we collect and why. We will by no means sell private data to anyone.” Osterloh repeated what Fitbit had to say about Fitbit fitness and health data: “We will supply Fitbit users the desire to review, move or delete their data.”
On the surface, each Google and Fitbit are attempting to cover their backs and guarantee users that matters won’t exchange in the way their information is treated when the deal is likely finished in 2020. In some cases, Fitbit customers will already have given Google get right of entry to to their stats by Google Fit syncing on Android phones.
“Fitbit users will be asking themselves whether they choose sensitive records like this being used and monetised by Google,” says Ed Johnson-Williams, a policy officer at Open Rights Group. “Google says they won’t use the records for concentrated on ads. Google need to tell Fitbit users and opposition authorities what different functions they will they use it for.”
“In the past, Google has pulled the plug on gadgets bought to customers by way of agencies they’ve acquired. Google must additionally reassure Fitbit customers that this won’t show up here.”
There’s an air of uncertainty surrounding how statistics will be carved up and moved around the business and it’s some thing Leo Gebbie, senior analyst for wearables and VR at CCS Insight, additionally believes nevertheless wants clarity. “How exactly the information will be used is currently unclear, and Fitbit customers who are involved about this be careful to evaluation the phrases of their statistics use as soon as the deal is complete.”
Fitbit grew to be HIPAA-compliant [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] in the US in 2015, and so, in accordance to James Moar, research analyst at Juniper Research, “any large-scale records collection that would be similar to Google’s ad data platform would jeopardise Fitbit’s current company health business.”
Fitbit states that “health well being data” will no longer be used for ads. But what about the other statistics it collects? As Johnson-Williams explains, Fitbit’s platform also collects location records and different non-health personal information, too. There have been no assurances on this front so far, or any mention of the level of anonymisation of this kind of data.
Fitbit’s privateness policy presently states that if Fitbit is acquired, it will "give affected customers note before transferring any non-public statistics to a new entity”. But who’s to say that Google’s stance will no longer change? It's passed off before after a Silicon Valley acquisition has been completed.
“We've seen guarantees broken in the previous the place other digital offerings have been acquired,” explains Johnson-Williams. “When Facebook received WhatsApp, customers were instructed that WhatsApp information wouldn’t be shared with Facebook. Once the dirt settled on the acquisition, Facebook started the use of statistics about how people used WhatsApp.”
If Google or Fitbit do damage these sorts of promises, there should be fines mendacity in wait. Google has already been discovered to be in breach of EU’s records privacy rules. It was fined £44m with the aid of French data safety regulator CNIL over information transparency again in January, making it one of the biggest GDPR fines dished out. In September, it was additionally fined $170m (£131m) for sharing statistics on teens on YouTube without the consent of parents.
Whether those kinds of fines are truly going to hit a organisation that’s valued at over $100bn looks unlikely. To be definitely cynical, it should really make business sense to use the new cache of Fitbit consumer facts extensively inside Alphabet’s companies and genuinely risk future fines.
Will GDPR rules in Europe end result in specific policies for extraordinary territories? As fitness information is fundamental to the carrier provision to the user, fitness data can be processed through both Fitbit and Google under GDPR, explains Moar. “There desires to be explicit consent for this, but that was already built into the frameworks Fitbit had.” Moar expects facts portability to the largest difficulty beneath GDPR, such as “being in a position to take Fitbit facts and supply it as part of any other system maker’s file (such as Garmin).” In that case, the information administration would be less difficult to do on a international basis with one global information privateness policy.
If statistics is not used for extra focused data-driven commercials the place Google’s predominant income lies, what else can we expect? “Fitbit already sells their units to employers to reveal personnel and to health insurance plan providers. Google should be looking to amplify into these markets,” suggests Jonhson-Williams. ”I’d additionally totally anticipate Google to have get entry to to all historical data as an alternative than just any new records going ahead as well.”
On that point, Juniper Research’s Moar is of the same opinion that there’s no purpose to assume that historic Fitbit information will no longer be transferred in the sale. “This would require an update to the current Terms & Conditions thanks to the exchange of ownership, which may additionally lose Google some users, however there are no other boundaries to the employer accessing all of Fitbit’s present users.”
Ramon Llamas, wearable tech analyst at IDC, has an absolutely exclusive take on the cross by way of Google to gather Fitbit and believes it’s no longer certainly about data here. “Accessing information is now not the endgame for Google. This is more about increasing its possibilities in healthcare.”
Google parent enterprise Alphabet has already proven its very own ambitions to delve deeper into the health-monitoring house thru tasks in development beneath its Verily Life Sciences research organization and the biotech spin-off Calico. Fitbit in the meantime in recent years has ramped up things as a long way as conducting medical trials and collaborating with essential fitness researchers and organisations.
In fact, the two already introduced a partnership in 2018 to carry health and fitness records to doctors and healthcare services. At the time Fitbit introduced its intention to use Google’s Cloud Healthcare API to combine Fitbit information into clinical records.
It is greater than possible that Google’s intentions for the way person statistics is used will be both felony and designed to benefit users. That said, we have already considered the tech large come under scrutiny from regulators, the authorities and most lately Labour's Tom Watson over what a deal like this could imply in terms of letting a agency on the scale of Google maintain so lots (more) personal and fitness data. It’s sufficient to make Fitbit users understandably wary of what occurs next.
Posted By:- MICHAEL SAWH
In September, there was the first whiff of a doable sale and simply a few months later, Google has introduced it’s obtaining Fitbit for a mentioned $2.1 billion (£1.63bn). Google is getting hardware and software program teams with wearable-tech expertise, such as Pebble smarts, to add to its combined efforts with Wear OS and the $40 million (£30m) really worth of Fossil smartwatch technological know-how it paid for at the start of 2019.
It’s also getting data. A total lot of it; some thing that is undeniably at the heart of this sizable acquisition. But what facts is Google getting? What can Google do with it? And can GDPR or Labour's Tom Watson make any difference?
Fitbit has 28m active users syncing step counts, heart-rate readings, sleep time, menstrual cycles, location and more from their devices. That may want to be the most rewarding component of the deal: person data. It will have no doubt been a purpose Facebook used to be also curiously sniffing round to see if it may want to buy the struggling fitness tracker maker, too. Fitbit sales fell from 22m in 2016 to an estimated 14m in 2018.
Unsurprisingly, both parties have been swift to address the subject of records and privacy in their respective announcements detailing the acquisition. In Fitbit’s press release, it stated: “Fitbit will proceed to put customers in manipulate of their data and will remain obvious about the records it collects and why.” It additionally added: “The organization by no means sells private information, and Fitbit fitness wellbeing facts will not be used for Google ads.”
There had been similar sentiments in a blog post by using Google from Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president of devices and services. “Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be obvious about the facts we collect and why. We will by no means sell private data to anyone.” Osterloh repeated what Fitbit had to say about Fitbit fitness and health data: “We will supply Fitbit users the desire to review, move or delete their data.”
On the surface, each Google and Fitbit are attempting to cover their backs and guarantee users that matters won’t exchange in the way their information is treated when the deal is likely finished in 2020. In some cases, Fitbit customers will already have given Google get right of entry to to their stats by Google Fit syncing on Android phones.
“Fitbit users will be asking themselves whether they choose sensitive records like this being used and monetised by Google,” says Ed Johnson-Williams, a policy officer at Open Rights Group. “Google says they won’t use the records for concentrated on ads. Google need to tell Fitbit users and opposition authorities what different functions they will they use it for.”
“In the past, Google has pulled the plug on gadgets bought to customers by way of agencies they’ve acquired. Google must additionally reassure Fitbit customers that this won’t show up here.”
There’s an air of uncertainty surrounding how statistics will be carved up and moved around the business and it’s some thing Leo Gebbie, senior analyst for wearables and VR at CCS Insight, additionally believes nevertheless wants clarity. “How exactly the information will be used is currently unclear, and Fitbit customers who are involved about this be careful to evaluation the phrases of their statistics use as soon as the deal is complete.”
Fitbit grew to be HIPAA-compliant [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] in the US in 2015, and so, in accordance to James Moar, research analyst at Juniper Research, “any large-scale records collection that would be similar to Google’s ad data platform would jeopardise Fitbit’s current company health business.”
Fitbit states that “health well being data” will no longer be used for ads. But what about the other statistics it collects? As Johnson-Williams explains, Fitbit’s platform also collects location records and different non-health personal information, too. There have been no assurances on this front so far, or any mention of the level of anonymisation of this kind of data.
Fitbit’s privateness policy presently states that if Fitbit is acquired, it will "give affected customers note before transferring any non-public statistics to a new entity”. But who’s to say that Google’s stance will no longer change? It's passed off before after a Silicon Valley acquisition has been completed.
“We've seen guarantees broken in the previous the place other digital offerings have been acquired,” explains Johnson-Williams. “When Facebook received WhatsApp, customers were instructed that WhatsApp information wouldn’t be shared with Facebook. Once the dirt settled on the acquisition, Facebook started the use of statistics about how people used WhatsApp.”
If Google or Fitbit do damage these sorts of promises, there should be fines mendacity in wait. Google has already been discovered to be in breach of EU’s records privacy rules. It was fined £44m with the aid of French data safety regulator CNIL over information transparency again in January, making it one of the biggest GDPR fines dished out. In September, it was additionally fined $170m (£131m) for sharing statistics on teens on YouTube without the consent of parents.
Whether those kinds of fines are truly going to hit a organisation that’s valued at over $100bn looks unlikely. To be definitely cynical, it should really make business sense to use the new cache of Fitbit consumer facts extensively inside Alphabet’s companies and genuinely risk future fines.
Will GDPR rules in Europe end result in specific policies for extraordinary territories? As fitness information is fundamental to the carrier provision to the user, fitness data can be processed through both Fitbit and Google under GDPR, explains Moar. “There desires to be explicit consent for this, but that was already built into the frameworks Fitbit had.” Moar expects facts portability to the largest difficulty beneath GDPR, such as “being in a position to take Fitbit facts and supply it as part of any other system maker’s file (such as Garmin).” In that case, the information administration would be less difficult to do on a international basis with one global information privateness policy.
If statistics is not used for extra focused data-driven commercials the place Google’s predominant income lies, what else can we expect? “Fitbit already sells their units to employers to reveal personnel and to health insurance plan providers. Google should be looking to amplify into these markets,” suggests Jonhson-Williams. ”I’d additionally totally anticipate Google to have get entry to to all historical data as an alternative than just any new records going ahead as well.”
On that point, Juniper Research’s Moar is of the same opinion that there’s no purpose to assume that historic Fitbit information will no longer be transferred in the sale. “This would require an update to the current Terms & Conditions thanks to the exchange of ownership, which may additionally lose Google some users, however there are no other boundaries to the employer accessing all of Fitbit’s present users.”
Ramon Llamas, wearable tech analyst at IDC, has an absolutely exclusive take on the cross by way of Google to gather Fitbit and believes it’s no longer certainly about data here. “Accessing information is now not the endgame for Google. This is more about increasing its possibilities in healthcare.”
Google parent enterprise Alphabet has already proven its very own ambitions to delve deeper into the health-monitoring house thru tasks in development beneath its Verily Life Sciences research organization and the biotech spin-off Calico. Fitbit in the meantime in recent years has ramped up things as a long way as conducting medical trials and collaborating with essential fitness researchers and organisations.
In fact, the two already introduced a partnership in 2018 to carry health and fitness records to doctors and healthcare services. At the time Fitbit introduced its intention to use Google’s Cloud Healthcare API to combine Fitbit information into clinical records.
It is greater than possible that Google’s intentions for the way person statistics is used will be both felony and designed to benefit users. That said, we have already considered the tech large come under scrutiny from regulators, the authorities and most lately Labour's Tom Watson over what a deal like this could imply in terms of letting a agency on the scale of Google maintain so lots (more) personal and fitness data. It’s sufficient to make Fitbit users understandably wary of what occurs next.
Posted By:- MICHAEL SAWH
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