Ambiguities in the Privacy Policies of Common Health and Fitness Apps

Abstract

With a growing number of health and wellness applications (apps), there is a need to explore exactly what third parties can legally do with personal data. Following a review of the online privacy policies of a select set of mobile health and fitness apps, this chapter assessed the privacy policies of four popular health and fitness apps, using a checklist that comprised five privacy risk categories. Privacy risks, were based on two questions: a) is important information missing to make informed decisions about the use of personal data? and b) is information being shared that might compromise the end-user's right to privacy of that information? The online privacy policies of each selected app was further examined to identify important privacy risks. From this, a separate checklist was completed and compared to reach an agreement of the presence or absence of each privacy risk category. This chapter concludes with a set of recommendations when designing privacy policies for the sharing of personal information collected from health and fitness apps.