Wearable tech security and privacy concerns

Gringer

Wearable tech has increased in popularity. Came across this link which has ringed the alarm bells. I currently own Samsung gear as well as moto 360. These might as well compromise based on this article.

The dark side of wearables: How they're secretly jeopardizing your security and privacy - TechRepublic

Stiggy

The main 'risk' being described involves US health insurance, which doesn't apply in the UK obviously. Also, most people who use a fitness tracker do so to get fitter, so your premiums should go down.

Another risk involves insurance fraud; people saying they are sick/disabled when they are not. Clamping down on that sounds good to me!

Yes, there is a risk of your data getting released, which I why I would stick to well known companies such as Apple and Samsung who are more likely to take proper measures to protect your privacy rather than a no-name Chinese wearable with its own Android app.

Gringer

I would agree with you. Going with these well known companies on one hand will definitely gives us a peace of mind that these giants would not be going bankrupt in our lives but nothing can be said about it (take example of Nokia).

On the other hand we can't be fully sure about them as some of the big companies have been highlighted long ago that they are involved in buying and selling data which be verified through this article, although a bit old info. Perks of Big data you know being a billion dollar industry.
Why big companies buy, sell your data - CNN.com

Stiggy

A lot of data is 'anonymised' in that it is about you, but doesn't identify you. I don't have a problem with that.

Buck Rodgers

It's ALL a major concern, not just wearables. My best solution is to have a room in my house that I work from where I keep electronic devices. Save my gear fit 2 no device goes outside that room save for the occasional movie we watch in bed. We have no downstairs TV, no Amazon Echoes and my fitness watch tracks my workouts, not my GPS position nor my day to day heart rate.

I suppose you could say it's kind of pointless having these things if I don't take them with me but the amount of data stored on a phone these days is astronomical and people just don't realize that the mic and camera can and will be accessed by any government that takes a more than passing interest in you.

Much of that data is being sifted up anyway, so they can look back in time and see everyone you know, everywhere you've gone and everything you've said or done.

My advice is to get an old phone you use for work and emergencies and make it the only thing you carry with you outside that room. I wouldn't even let kids - If I had any - watch the current garbage they put in cartoons, My mother who baby sits my sister's kids told me that last week they had a cartoon tranny on a very popular kids show.

I don't watch Fake news either - no BBC, no SKY TV, no CNN....no Netflix period. It's amazing how different you feel when you're not pummeling garbage into your brain.

Throw out your TV folks.....