A Step in the Right Direction – Understanding Privacy Concerns and Perceived Sensitivity of Fitness Trackers

Keeping an active lifestyle has been important and recommended for decades. The arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT) offers opportunities to simplify the tracking and logging of data supporting that lifestyle. So-called activity or fitness trackers have become smaller and more affordable over the past few years. However, their use is not as widespread as could be. This explorative study with n = 82 participants investigates privacy concerns and sensitivity regarding data gathered with wearables. It was found that long-term storage location and possible recipients of the collected data do play important roles. However, the consensus was that the participants would prefer to keep said data to themselves. Furthermore, user factors such as age, gender, and privacy behavior could not be identified as having an effect on sharing said data.