Internet of Things: Anything You Track Could Be Used Against You Posted on : Jul 29 - 2015

Security advocates have been bringing up privacy concerns surrounding wearable devices in the Internet of Things a lot lately. But why would anyone care about the information tracked with fitness devices? Unsurprisingly, the first real-world answer to this question has come from lawyers in a couple of recent court cases.

What data are useful?

Those fitness trackers that have become omnipresent on people’s wrists are essentially behavior trackers. In ways analogous to how cookies track your activity online, fitness trackers track your activity in “meatspace,” the world of flesh and blood and the opposite of cyberspace. Trackers, as the name implies, allow you to track when you move, how far you move, how long you move for, where you move and, increasingly in what ways you move.

As fitness trackers become more sophisticated, they will be able to tell the difference between the movement of restful and fitful sleep, or skiing versus running versus climbing stairs, and log these data accordingly. Devices with heart rate monitors can give more accurate accounts of the exertion of exercise, or the soundness of sleep. Devices with GPS can tell when you’re exercising at home or at the gym, and they can track the length or path of your routes when you exercise outside. Devices that include altimeters can track changes in elevation during your activity as well. View more