New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 15

T

he day I began to suspect

my Fitbit was cheating on

me, I realised our 18-month

love affair was probably over.

We’d been inseparable. It

knew my heart better than

I did. It was with me every

step of the way. When it was

pleased with me, my mood soared. Then I

discovered that maybe I couldn’t trust it any

longer. Like many lovers, it was undone by

a digital double life – in this case, an app

update. Suddenly, the heart rate it had meas-

ured so faithfully began averaging 10 beats a

minute faster than it had for almost all the

preceding year. Either it had been lying to

me before or it was lying now. The trust was

gone, the sense of betrayal real.

Now that insurer AIA is offering rewards

to its 500,000 customers who upload health

and exercise data from wearable devices

such as Fitbits and Apple watches, it’s time

to ask the big questions. How accurate –

and secure – is that data? How useful is the

technology for improving our health? And

are there downsides we haven’t considered?

AIA was keen to promote the programme

when it announced it in April, but wouldn’t

answer questions we put to it in May. In

publicity at the time, AIA said it wouldn’t

get direct access to customers’ health or

lifestyle information, but would be advised

only of their status as bronze, silver, gold

or platinum members – the tiers based on

activity levels. Members would get premium

discounts based on that status.

AIA’s Vitality scheme is owned by a

separate company, South African insurer

Discovery, but as numerous data breaches

around the world have shown us, almost

any information is hackable, either from

within or without.

In 2011, the then three-year-old Fitbit

company had to hide users’ data after

discovering the trackers were revealing

their sexual-activity statistics online. The

company had made user profiles and activ-

ity public by default, but a month after the

furore, it stopped users being able to list

sex, with its varying degrees of exertion

(“mild to moderate”, “passive, light effort”

or “active and vigorous”), as one of their

tracked activities.

And what happens when unscrupulous

users trick their device into counting steps

by attaching it to their dog’s collar, their

ankle, a metronome or even a power saw –

or simply hand it to a fitter or more active

friend or relative? In China, there’s even a

rocking cradle to which you can attach your

phone, thereby artificially inflating its step

count. Researchers say such hacks are rare,

but you can imagine them appealing to a

cash-strapped couch potato on an incen-

tivised premium.

GOOD IN THEORY

Wearable fitness trackers sound so good in

theory. They remind us when to get up and

move, encourage us to reach our daily step

goals, measure our heart rate and monitor

our sleep. What could possibly go wrong?

If you could afford one, why wouldn’t you

give it a go?

Australian researcher Professor Deborah

Lupton can think of a number of reasons.

STEPPING

INTO A

MINEFIELD

One in five New Zealanders owns a fitness tracker,

but are they a boon for your health – or a threat to

your privacy? by DONNA CHISHOLM ● illustration by ANTHONY ELLISON

“What started off as

people doing it for

themselves because they

wanted to improve their

health, fitness and sleep is

now moving into domains

where third parties have

an interest in your data.”