Are you tracking your health with a device? Here’s what could happen with the data

Every day millions of people share more intimate information with their accessories than they do with their spouse. “That permeates into all kinds of areas of our lives and all kinds of domains within the tech industry.” 2024 Consumer Attorneys of Southern California New California Law Governs Protected Health Information The State of California recently sent letters to eight major pharmacy chains as well as five health data companies, reminding the companies of their obligations to comply with California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. It also calls for expanding national health privacy laws to cover health-related information collected from health apps and fitness trackers and making it easier for users to opt out of body-centric data collections. Location data can “expose sophisticated insights about people’s health status, through their visits to places like hospitals or abortions clinics,” Mozilla’s report said, adding that “companies like Google have been reported to keep such data even after promising to delete it.” A 2023 report by Duke University revealed that data brokers were selling sensitive data on individuals’ mental health conditions on the open market. But health data collected by many wearable devices and health and wellness apps don’t fall under HIPAA’s umbrella, said Suzanne Bernstein, counsel at Electronic Privacy Information Center.