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Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#31

Post by samkellett »

saiya-jin wrote: post #18
tomerico wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I definitely agree that there are large privacy concerns when collecting health related data, I disagree with the sentiment that it's always a bad idea. There is a huge net benefit to modernizing medicine and getting to an AI that is more accurate then doctors. Creating those datasets is a leap towards that direction.

Sorry to be impolite but... f*ck that. If they want true anonymity, then remove at least location part of this (or say with 50km precision). Make it all optional with clear description what user opt for. And have independent yearly audit that confirms this on their core databases. Anything less that that, and their motives are dirty as stale sewage waters. Why it seems that every company out there is only after as-mu…

location is a pretty important metric for diagnostics

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#32

Post by lawlessone »

>The scientists note that Qatar seems to be an outlier. Seventy percent of the Qatari population is obese — yet their RHR is an impressive 62. How could that be?

Might be because the obese Qatari aren't the Qataris buying fitbits?

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#33

Post by Deganta »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

> modern smartwatches and fitness bands can track your pulse continuously, day and night, for months. Imagine what you could learn if you collected all that data from tens of millions of people! Please no. Surely nobody thought collecting health data from all their users was a good idea, right? > That’s exactly what Fitbit (FIT) has done. It has now logged 150 billion hours’ worth of heart-rate data. From tens of mil…

I'm currently thinking about buying a fitness tracker, and this article definitely rules out a Fitbit. Does anyone know a fitness tracker that does not share my personal health data with anyone?

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#34

Post by swift532 »

kendallpark wrote: post #24
saagarjha wrote: post #4

> modern smartwatches and fitness bands can track your pulse continuously, day and night, for months. Imagine what you could learn if you collected all that data from tens of millions of people! Please no. Surely nobody thought collecting health data from all their users was a good idea, right? > That’s exactly what Fitbit (FIT) has done. It has now logged 150 billion hours’ worth of heart-rate data. From tens of mil…

> "Anonymized". Just with the data posted above, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to correlate the data to a person. And auto-enrolling everyone who buys a health product is not an excuse to mine all their data. Hospitals are allowed to anonymize protected health information in their medical records to mine the data (they can distribute it too) without the patient's consent. PHI is way more protected than consumer h…

I'm guessing here, but I'd say hospitals have much more stringent laws they have to adhere. I doubt someone is auditing Fitbit. It's like another commenter said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17915986

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#35

Post by crististm »

samkellett wrote: post #31
saiya-jin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be impolite but... f*ck that. If they want true anonymity, then remove at least location part of this (or say with 50km precision). Make it all optional with clear description what user opt for. And have independent yearly audit that confirms this on their core databases. Anything less that that, and their motives are dirty as stale sewage waters. Why it seems that every company out there is only after as-mu…

location is a pretty important metric for diagnostics

Sarcasm is lost on text. Unless you were serious in which case just reconsider

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#36

Post by mscasts »

While I am a privacy advocate in most aspects, I fail to see how my basic health data like HR, weight etc is going to be used against me except for bad marketing practices.

If I talk ill about some political ideologies and that gets stored until some evil dictator gets in power, that I can get. But who is going to put me in prison for having a high heart rate?

The benefits in the other hand is great. I get to see and view my health improve or get worse over time and they can use my data along with many others to get patterns and help improve the health of everyone.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't really get the panic about giving up health data that is displayed in this comment section. I also own a Withings / Nokia watch together with a scale and it works great, have motivated me to get more sleep and exercise more. My experience is purely positive and I am quite certain that owning devices like this helps a lot of people get more healthy, detect bad trends etc.

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#37

Post by sanlyx »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

> modern smartwatches and fitness bands can track your pulse continuously, day and night, for months. Imagine what you could learn if you collected all that data from tens of millions of people! Please no. Surely nobody thought collecting health data from all their users was a good idea, right? > That’s exactly what Fitbit (FIT) has done. It has now logged 150 billion hours’ worth of heart-rate data. From tens of mil…

I don't really care about Fitbit collecting all that data. If you don't want yours to be used, just buy another tracker from the tons out there. Privacy is all about choice, so it's not as bad as i.e. Google using your search data because the room for choice is smaller (at least for me, having tried out DuckDuckGo and others and switching back). Also I'd rather have my data harvested for science and medicine than for selling advertisements or whatnot

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#38

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

mscasts wrote: post #36

While I am a privacy advocate in most aspects, I fail to see how my basic health data like HR, weight etc is going to be used against me except for bad marketing practices. If I talk ill about some political ideologies and that gets stored until some evil dictator gets in power, that I can get. But who is going to put me in prison for having a high heart rate? The benefits in the other hand is great. I get to see and…

I agree, although I'm lucky enough to live in a country where healthcare is universal and not at the whim of an insurance company. I presume this is the situation for you too?

Re: Fitbit's 150B hours of heart data

#39

Post by mscasts »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #38
mscasts wrote: post #36

While I am a privacy advocate in most aspects, I fail to see how my basic health data like HR, weight etc is going to be used against me except for bad marketing practices. If I talk ill about some political ideologies and that gets stored until some evil dictator gets in power, that I can get. But who is going to put me in prison for having a high heart rate? The benefits in the other hand is great. I get to see and…

I agree, although I'm lucky enough to live in a country where healthcare is universal and not at the whim of an insurance company. I presume this is the situation for you too?

Yes, that is the situation for me too. I guess if my healthcare was depending on my insurence getting through I would be more careful with that data but I don't think they would be able to identify me.

I actually think the reverse could be true. If you own a watch, a scale etc you are obviously thinking about your health and prioritizing it. It makes little sense to punish people who prioritize their health and monitor it to evade bad stuff.

If I notice a bad trend I would do something about it, if it was my heart rate I would probably call a doctor and usually with health the earlier you identify an issue the more likely it will be easier to do something about it.

If you go with a bad heart for years it will probably be harder to get healthy after that and will probably be more expensive as you might require a surgery which perhaps could be avoided.

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