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Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

dockets.justia.com

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Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#21

Post by lynndotpy »

AlokNandan wrote: post #9

EDIT: This is a known issue w/ all pulse oximeters. See Prof Kadambi @UCLA work on this --> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fixing-medical-de... FDA is aware of this issue. Increasing diversity in clinical trials is a hard problem. https://www.linkedin.com/events/increasingdiversityinclinica...

And nothing in Apple's advertising or product info suggested this. I also don't think I saw anything describing this in the ToS or EULA.

The least they could do is be upfront about this.

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#22

Post by sokoloff »

shagie wrote: post #4

The complaint is also available at https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.nysd.591590 - the pdf is https://ia601507.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.5... The initial part of the complaint: 1. Apple, Inc. (“Defendant”) manufactures, markets, and sells the Apple Watch, purporting to measure the oxygen level of a wearer’s blood directly from their wrist (“Product”). 2. The interest in blood oxygen levels exte…

1. OK

2-6. Thank you for the history of vaguely functionally competitive devices from sellers other than the defendant, but what the hell does that have to do with Apple's watch?

7-8. Also seems unrelated to Apple or Apple Watches, but rather to non-Apple fingertip devices.

9. Perhaps an alternative conclusion is "Healthcare workers probably shouldn't be [and almost certainly aren't] triaging patients of any skin color with a consumer watch."? Since they're not using Apple devices for this purpose, to any extent that they're drawing inaccurate conclusions for care based on devices which use the same underlying theory but aren't actually made by Apple, that is not Apple's responsibility.

10. It's a good thing then that healthcare workers aren't using these Apple devices to triage, direct, or prioritize care. To the extent that non-Apple healthcare workers are using non-Apple devices to improperly direct this care, that is certainly a concern, but is not Apple's concern.

11-14. Thank you for getting back to something relevant to your suit; not sure why you wasted the court's time with items 2-10.

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#23

Post by sschueller »

dainiusse wrote: post #7

This is absurd...

Is it? Apple got a FDA certification for the ECG, if that isn't for all consumers it's a problem.

On another note, the FDA handing out "certification" in addition to "approval" seems like a deliberate way to confuse consumers when one is basically a stamp for money.

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#24

Post by nightpool »

Companies get sued by random people for stuff like this all the time, I don't think there's anything here that indicates this is particularly newsworthy or exceptional. This is the same class-action lawyer who sued Kellogs for not putting enough strawberry ingredients into their strawberry poptarts: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/30/1050175655/strawberry-pop-tar.... Apparently (according to that NPR article) he files ~3 lawsuits per week

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#25

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

nonethewiser wrote: post #20
mjhay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's marketed as being accurate. It's not for large segments of the population. This is clearly a serious problem (and with all pulse oximeters). How is that absurd?

If skin color is a factor then some group could always make this case. It's just the reality of different skin colors existing.

Then is it too much to ask to disclose this?

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#26

Post by uoaei »

Sindrome wrote: post #5

[flagged]

If your product doesn't serve your potential customers the way you demonstrate in ads, it is false advertising at the very least. The idea that companies don't have responsibility to produce something that works as intended for those who buy them is laughable in its ignorance of the history of consumer protection regulations.

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#27

Post by mjhay »

nonethewiser wrote: post #20
mjhay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's marketed as being accurate. It's not for large segments of the population. This is clearly a serious problem (and with all pulse oximeters). How is that absurd?

If skin color is a factor then some group could always make this case. It's just the reality of different skin colors existing.

Of course they didn't do it to specifically disadvantage black people, but they clearly did not do their due diligence to make sure it worked properly with black people. That's the issue. You're doing semantic quibbling over your own particular notion of what "racism" is.

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#28

Post by dpratt »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #25
nonethewiser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If skin color is a factor then some group could always make this case. It's just the reality of different skin colors existing.

Then is it too much to ask to disclose this?

Are you really backing the argument that Apple’s product team is composed of mustache-twirling racists?

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#29

Post by Teever »

lynndotpy wrote: post #21
AlokNandan wrote: post #9

EDIT: This is a known issue w/ all pulse oximeters. See Prof Kadambi @UCLA work on this --> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fixing-medical-de... FDA is aware of this issue. Increasing diversity in clinical trials is a hard problem. https://www.linkedin.com/events/increasingdiversityinclinica...

And nothing in Apple's advertising or product info suggested this. I also don't think I saw anything describing this in the ToS or EULA. The least they could do is be upfront about this.

Do you feel they should have a disclaimer about it being harder to take picture of dark skinned people in many settings with their cameras as well?

Did you actually read the ToS or EULA?

Re: Apple Sued Alleging Racial Bias Against Minorities on Watch's Blood Oximeter

#30

Post by Dave_Rosenthal »

I'm curious about the word 'bias' here. From a technical perspective, does the pulse oximetry sensor just have more variance on darker skin (presumably from it being more opaque and signal to noise being worse), or is there an actual bias (e.g. reads high all the time)?
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