Canadian Standards Association (CSA Group) / Association canadienne de normalisation (Groupe CSA)

Purpose

This research and knowledge translation project focuses on the privacy implications of wellness wearables. There has been a rapid increase in uptake of commercial health and wellness apps and wearable devices. By enabling the active and passive collection of consumers’ sensitive health-related data, these apps and devices pose substantial privacy risks (e.g. the creation of behavioural profiles for prediction, data breaches, etc.). As both commercial and health products, they occupy a regulatory grey area that allows for increased data sharing, cross-border transmission and storage and other risks to intimate data. The project supports the development and understanding of privacy rights for those developing standards, policies, and guidance related to this field.