Tuesday, November 18, 2014

All for the best

Friend or foe?
Wearables or technology that you can wear have become a big thing of the last few years. This is set to accelerate with he launch of the Apple watch next year. From the simple pedometers these devices have evolved to recorded detailed information about sleep, movement and even heart rate. Combined with mobile phones they can track a large amount of objective information.

These devices generally collect information to the cloud, held on third party servers. Now lawyers have cottoned on to the fact  a wealth of information is available. A case in the USA is using data from a Fitbit account in a personal injury case to demonstrate the objective and measured changes to the plaintiff's lifestyle.

I myself own a Fitbit  I use it to monitor my activity, it certainly has helped me walk more and be a little more active. It is disturbing to me to realise that lawyers could request this information. I imagine the intelligence authorities are or will be attempting to access this data soon, does elevated hear-rate mean somebody is running a marathon or, maybe planning a terror attack?