Personal Statement Of A Fitness App - 1511 Words

As of 2014 almost one third of all smartphone users in the U.S. used a fitness app in the past year and I am one of them (â€Å"Hacking Health†). Last year, I was gifted a Fitbit for Christmas from my father and I began to use it every day along with a calorie counting app called MyFitnessPal. My main goal was to lose weight, and I did. The combination between MyFitnessPal and Fitbit was perfect. I could log my activity with one and what I ate with the other. At my lowest, I had lost close to fifteen pounds and I felt great and looked fabulous in time for my senior prom. After that I felt I no longer needed the help from fitness apps, but as graduation came and went the weight slowly crept back on. Before I knew, it I had gained ten pounds†¦show more content†¦Fitness apps collect multiple different types of personal information and health data such as age, weight, height, body temperature, sleep cycles, activity levels, and so much more. According to Jessica Rich, th e director of the Federal Bureau for Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, â€Å"Health data from [a person’s] connected device, may be collected and then sold to data brokers and other companies [they] do not know exists† (Liebelson). Lots of popular companies such as Nike, Fitbit, and Garmin collect personal information in databases and use it within their own company to better their products. However, there has been talk that these companies have secretly been selling their data. University of Colorado law school professor, Scott Peppet adds, if not already â€Å"Fitbit will eventually move toward sharing this data† because it â€Å"is so high quality that I could do things like price insurance premiums or I could probably evaluate your credit score incredible accurately† (Liebelson). This should be terrifying to the average consumer because it means Fitbit could easily make top dollar for their health information and they wouldnâ€℠¢t even know about it till it was printed in an article in the New York Times. Not just Fitbit, but any major fitness corporation that has an app could sell information to other companies. Rich says, â€Å"these companies could use [their] information to market other products