I’M Under Surveillance — By My Watch
I’m under surveillance — by my watch
Smart watches make a haven for hypochondriacs and could overburden healthcare systems
May 12, 2015 2:30 am PDT
Psst. Quiet, don’t say anything. I’m being followed, you see. My every move, my habits, even when I stand up, sit down or go to sleep. They know everything about me.
I’ve been under surveillance for a while now. I don’t know quite when I was sure, I’ve had a nagging suspicion for some time. But I do know it really started a month ago when I put on that so-called fitness watch, a seemingly innocuous Basis Peak, loaned to me by Intel, so I could see what the fuss was all about.
Built in is a heart monitor, shining dual LEDs into my wrist and reading my pulse. Great, I thought. Before I knew it I was swiping the screen every now and then, just to see how well I was doing. Even sitting in a chair gave the opportunity to check my resting heart rate. 55bpm, not bad, I remember thinking to myself.
Every now and then I would sync to my phone, uploading data from the HRM, as well as accelerometers and a temperature gauge. I could unlock habits merely by keeping the process going - “Well done,” it said, “You’ve been wearing the Peak for 12 hours, three times a week! You’ve been walking more than 2,000 paces a day! You’ve burnt calories, got enough sleep!“
Then the emails started to come through. “Here’s your weekly sleep summary,” they announced. It was at that point I realised that I was being monitored — first and foremost by me. I was wandering alone in a wilderness of mirrors, each reflecting back some aspect of myself. My existence, writ large on a management console for my own perusal.
A couple of decades ago the future-facing Wim Wenders film ‘Right to the End of the World’ incorporated a device that could read and play back our dreams. At first people saw it as smart, but then they realised just how addictive it could be. One character was lost forever to the screen, watching their deepest thoughts on repeated loop.
In Wim’s world, the devices were all-powerful but we have the cloud, that seemingly-infinite processing and storage space controlled by, well, whom? As we upload our data to cleverly-named service providers, we fail to consider who they are and what they might do with it. Which might have been fine for our shopping habits, but it should perhaps not be the case for our vital signs.
It’s the same dilemma that we face for our location data, as accumulated by mobile phone companies: this one has been running for years but we are still no closer to a solution (and meanwhile, the information continues to be stockpiled). However, fitness information takes this to a new level — for example, could there be an additional insurance risk of having a higher than normal heart rate?
In my last article I suggested that it might be a good thing to health-monitor train drivers — and I am a staunch advocate of detailed monitoring of armed forces in training, to avoid pushing young people beyond their capabilities. As commenter Brock McLellan noted however, we need to be careful about how we do so. “I would like to add a 6th point to your plan. Communicate only when necessary!”
I’ve said before that data about us should be treated in exactly the same way as ourselves; whatever is right for the physical, should also be considered for the virtual. For example, if my data is of value to others, I may be prepared to enter into a value exchange (as I do with my Tesco Clubcard) — but this is not the case for so much else of it, which is bought, sold and raided with impunity.
To the point: smart watches take this debate to the next level — it is as if we have been softened up by technology to such an extent that we now see it as acceptable, without any T’s and C’s, to give away data about our core functions. Perhaps this is acceptable to the majority; perhaps it is not; but in either case, we should be thinking quite deeply about the ramifications of doing so.
One such impact might be a misalignment of our own expectations. I remember reading an interview with a doctor in the US, shortly after Apple released its HealthKit framework. “Where, precisely, am I going to have time to look at the ongoing health statuses of my patients” was the gist.
Our hard-pressed medical services are already bowing under the weight of the so-called ‘walking well’. We are creating a haven for hypochondriacs, as people know more about their health and depend on the powers of Google — in which the more extreme cases bubble to the top — for initial diagnosis. It’s a dilemma, undoubtedly, as we are encouraged to think more pre-emptively about our health.
A week ago I took off the Basis Peak, to see what happened — I have found myself feeling slightly bereft but what with Fitbit, Apple and a host of others getting in on the game I doubt this will remain the case for long. Frankly, I am self-absorbed enough to enjoy perusing such data, for better or worse. This doesn’t change the fact that I may already be creating a petard of data upon which I might be hoist.
Over the next decade we will be able to know more about ourselves and others than we ever could. Right now we have a collectively, fantastically lax attitude to how we hand over our data to unknown parties, but the consequences will eventually need to be dealt with, for better or worse.