My fitness tracker sold my sleep data to an insurance company

I got an email from my health insurance last week asking if I wanted a discount for hitting 7 hours of sleep consistently. I never told them about my sleep tracking app. After digging through the privacy policy on my Garmin device, it turns out they share anonymized data with third parties that partner with insurers. I didn't even realize my watch was giving away that kind of detail about my nightly rest. Has anyone else found out their wearable data got sold somewhere unexpected?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant4781mo ago

Big tech's been selling everything about us for years, sleep is just the latest thing.

kimfisher1mo ago

jessica707 is right about the middleman thing. My buddy got hit with an auto insurance rate hike after his FordPass app shared driving data with a broker without him realizing it. Took him months to figure out that his own car snitched on his late night driving habits to the insurance company.

jessica7071mo ago

Garmin's not really selling your data directly to insurers though... they sell anonymized data streams that get bought by data brokers who package it for insurance companies. It's more of a middleman situation than Garmin cutting a direct check from your insurance.

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