In what some say is an Orwellian twist on technology use, employers are increasingly tracking employee health data gathered from wearable health trackers, like Fitbits and Apple watches.
About 20 percent of employers who provide health insurance collected data from their employee's wearable devices last year, according a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and cited by the Washington Post. As this practice becomes more pervasive, some employees worry they could be charged more for insurance based on their health habits.
And this is already happening in some places. Before teachers in Virginia went on strike last year, they were told they would be required to wear fitness trackers and earn points based on their health habits. If a teacher did not receive a certain amount of points by the end of the school year, they would have to pay an additional deductible and a higher monthly premium. The program was abandoned as a result of the strikes.
“Your boss should not be in charge of your health,” said Art Caplan Monday on Boston Public Radio. Caplan is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty chair and director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Caplan said he worries that a lack of regulatory oversight in the use of fitness tracking data could allow employers — and others — to know every detail of an employee's body and health.
“We don’t have any rules or regulations in place saying who else could take a peek, or what’s going to happen if someone illegally taps in," he said. “The real danger is where are we going with this in terms of who can see it.”
