A Canadian website, Access My Info, is making it easier for Canadians to find out how their fitness tracker data is collected and shared.
Fitness trackers such as FitBit have exploded in popularity as more people are motivated to keep track of their weight, walking habits and general health.
But who has access to this information? A company’s disclosure statements can be hard to understand and vague at the best of times. Couple that with a poor understanding of privacy laws in your country and the groundwork is laid for information to be shared without your consent or knowledge.
In Canada, privacy laws allow consumers to access and correct personal information being held by businesses that operate in Canada. Access My Info auto-generates requests to companies that collect a consumer’s personal info, and asks what they’re collecting and who they’re sharing it with.
The online tool generates requests to some of the most popular fitness trackers, dating apps, telecommunications companies and the Government of Canada.
With insurance companies such as Manulife launching programs that reward – and possibly punish – clients based on their fitness, personal data is a valuable asset that could affect your insurance coverage and other services that rely on collecting this kind of information for commercial use.