Halo and goodbye privacy?
In August Halo was lanched by Amazon which is a new wearable device to compete with Apple Watch and Fitbit. The Halo device does not only allow customers to track things like exercise and sleep, as most fitness wearables, but can also track emotional changes by listening to the wearer’s tone of voice and can present a 3D body image with a body fat percentage. Also there is an option to upload the collection information to the largest electronic medical record companies which could potentially make it available to physicians. Halo has taken the step of putting control of the collected health data in the hands of the individual, not the company that manufactured the device. Currently, neither Amazon, nor Apple, nor any other retail fitness tracker is required by federal law to maintain any particular privacy standard, so it’s fixed in their terms of service which might change in the future (California residents may benefit, though, from the California Consumer Privacy Act.). Does this open the commercial opportunity for such wearable devices by exploiting the hole in legislation? Will it be available in Europe and how does this relate to the current downfall of the EU-US Privacy Shield and the GDPR?
read more about this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/29/op-ed-amazon-halo-privacy-considerations.html