Fitbit and privacy
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but I'm too frugal to get a Fitbit or other similar device. I only have a Crane heart rate monitor. They keep talking on my local news station about the Fitbit being a concern for privacy. Anyone with a Fitbit concerned? Just curious.
Here is one article. http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...ter-technology |
This article raises some good points. I'll add another: Recently a person I knew many, many years ago contacted me out of the blue through FitBit asking to friend me. I like this person and don't have an issue with her, but I was creeped out to realize that anybody could locate me this way. I don't do Facebook or Twitter and didn't think I had much of a trackable online presence. Apparently I was wrong :eek:. And on another front, most of my extended family are now my FitBit friends, but are way too competitive for me; they strive to be #1 every day and rack up 100,000+ steps weekly. It gets depressing to always be the person in last place, but as someone who works 8 hours a day at a desk, there is no way for me to keep up with them unless I live on the elliptical/treadmill in the evening and ignore everything else in my life. Maybe it is time for me to ditch FitBit and go back to a pedometer.
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As an already paranoid person, I am afraid to read the article....
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I don't consider height, weight and steps to be my most sensitive medical data, so no, not really. Yes, people can find you if they look and I've gotten some people I don't know. I just don't accept them as friends. The only thing they can see is your user name and average number of steps. No different, really from Facebook
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Never use your real name or info for these types of things. We use fake names and emails set up for them.
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ETA: On Fitbit's website, it says that you can set privacy settings to limit what people can see. I had no idea that Fitbit included a Facebook-type aspect. |
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I don't friend people on Fitbit's or MyFitnessPal's sites, so the most anyone can see is my average steps, I think. I have the One, so it doesn't know my heart rate, nor does it track my location. Similarly to raeven, I use an email address for my account that doesn't have my full name associated with it. |
I have a fitbit. I never linked it with anything, and never really sync it either. Everything I want to know is on my wrist... I'm not competitive. And I like living under the rock.
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