Fitness Trackers

Audio

Lots of people use fitness trackers to help them stay active.

Fitness trackers collect information including exercise and sleep patterns which can be fun and helpful for a user.
However, for anyone at risk of stalking or abuse, it is important to use privacy settings to protect this information.

This video shows how to use the privacy settings on a popular fitness tracker - a Fitbit. Most other brands of fitness tracker will have similar privacy settings.

First, Change all Settings to ‘Private’.
Most fitness tracker app settings will be set to ‘Public’ when they are first installed. This means private information can be found by other people.
To keep fitness data private, go to ‘Settings’.
Change every setting to ‘Private’.

If the App or device is reset or reinstalled, the Settings must be changed to ‘Private’ again.

If a Fitness Tracker app doesn’t have Privacy settings, it should not be used by anyone at risk of abuse or stalking.

Anyone at risk of abuse or stalking should be careful if a perpetrator has given them or their child a fitness tracker. They may have synced it to their own device and be able to monitor the user’s activity and location.

Don’t link Fitness tracker apps to social media accounts. This can give away information including location.

To check if a Fitbit is connected to social media accounts, go to the Dashboard, select Settings, select Sharing. Select ‘Unlink’.

Users should also be cautious about syncing a fitness tracker with groups, including fitness groups. If a user wants to sync to one of these groups they should change all fitness tracker settings to ‘private’ so others can’t collect their information.

When labelling a Fitness tracker, the user should not use their name or anything that would identify them. It should be called something that doesn’t give the identity of the person away or the fact that it is a Fitness Tracker.

Fitness Trackers should only be synced to a device that is in the control of the user.

Fitness trackers should not be synced using public or unsecured wi-fi hotspots as these are easy to hack.

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