The Apple Watch can track anything from heart rate to GPS movements, but no patient wants data about hypertension, diabetes or other sensitive medical records shared, the writer says. Picture: 123RF/VARIN RATTANABURI
Retailers and banks have kept and shared customer data as far back as the founding of Equifax in 1899, and the practice was codified into credit scores in the 1950s. The internet and smartphones have turned such practices into a vast industry, dubbed “surveillance capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff, a Harvard professor.
Zuboff, a critic of technology companies such as Google, describes the enforced sharing of personal data as “a coup from above — the installation of a new kind of sovereign power”. Instead of companies creating goods and services in response to consumer demand, data gathered from people becomes a corporate asset.
Livongo, a US digital health service that has filed for an initial public offering, is one example. It allows diabetics to test their blood-sugar levels, have their results analysed remotely and be told by text or app what they need to do immediately. By making it easier to monitor basic health data, such services help people to stay well.
It would be tragic if the market for life and health monitoring went the way of credit scoring and behavioural advertising, which were controlled for years by data brokers without consumers knowing how their personal data were being used, or exerting any influence. Two safeguards are needed if data monitoring is not to end in scandal.