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Contribution to Book
“Sensitive but Essential Information”: Policy Debates on Fitness Application Privacy and Data Security
Privacy Concerns Surrounding Personal Information Sharing on Health and Fitness Mobile Apps (2021)
  • Alison Nicole Novak, Rowan University
Abstract
As fitness trackers and applications grow popular, many actors involved in the development, use, and regulation of these devices expressed concerns of privacy and control of data gathered through these platforms. This chapter explores how government representatives, industry leaders, regulators, and politicians discursively constructed and critiqued data privacy in fitness applications in congressional contexts. Findings indicate the following discourses: (1) fitness trackers as indicative of larger data collection issues, (2) weighing the pros and cons of use, (3) military implications for fitness application data security, (4) consumers as responsible for their own data privacy, (5) organizations failing to keep pace with cyber security threats, and (6) the misuse of data collected in fitness applications for promotion/strategic communication uses.
Publication Date
January 1, 2021
Publisher
IGI Global
DOI
10.4018/978-1-7998-3487-8.CH010
Citation Information
Alison Nicole Novak. "“Sensitive but Essential Information”: Policy Debates on Fitness Application Privacy and Data Security" Privacy Concerns Surrounding Personal Information Sharing on Health and Fitness Mobile Apps (2021) p. 240 - 267
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alison-novak/29/