Wearable Devices and Privacy Concerns

Wearable devices have evolved over the years and shown significant increase in popularity. With the advances in sensor technologies, data collection capabilities, and data analytics, wearable devices now enable interaction among users, devices, and their environment seamlessly. Multifunctional nature of this technology enables users to track their daily physical activities, engage with other users through social networking capabilities, and log their lifestyle habits. In this chapter, the authors discuss the types of sensor technologies embedded in wearable devices and how the data collected through such devices can be further interpreted by data analytics. In parallel with abundance of personal data that can be collected via wearable devices, they also discuss issues related to data privacy, suggestions for users, developers, and policymakers regarding how to protect data privacy are also discussed.