How to Publish Wearables' Data: Practical Guidelines to Protect User Privacy

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Data Privacy
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Wearable fitness trackers are increasingly used in health studies, generating large datasets.
• The disclosure of raw data from these devices presents substantial privacy vulnerabilities.
• Existing data sharing practices often overlook potential privacy threats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and discuss the privacy threats associated with disclosing unaltered data from wearable fitness devices.
• To debunk common misconceptions regarding the security of fitness data sharing.
• To provide actionable recommendations for safeguarding user privacy in fitness research.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of privacy risks in wearable device data.
• Analysis of common fallacies in fitness data sharing protocols.
• Development of practical privacy preservation guidelines.

Main Results:

• Identified specific threats including re-identification and sensitive attribute inference.
• Debunked myths such as data anonymization being sufficient.
• Proposed a framework for privacy-preserving data disclosure.

Conclusions:

• Unaltered wearable fitness data poses severe privacy risks.
• Effective data sanitization and privacy guidelines are crucial for ethical research.
• Users' privacy must be prioritized in the collection and dissemination of fitness data.