Wearable devices in healthcare: Privacy and information security issues

Abstract

Background: Mobile health has provided new and exciting ways for patients to partake in their healthcare. Wearable devices are designed to collect the user’s health data, which can be analysed to provide information about the user’s health status. However, little research has been conducted that addresses privacy and information security issues of these devices. Objective: To investigate the privacy and information security issues to which users are exposed when using wearable health devices. Method: The study used a cross-sectional survey approach to collect data from a convenience sample of 106 respondents. Results: Half of the respondents did not understand the need to protect health information. There also appeared to be a general lack of awareness among respondents about the information security issues surrounding their data collected by wearable devices. Conclusion: Users were not knowledgeable about the privacy risks that their data are exposed to or how these data are protected once collected. Implications: Users of wearable devices that collect personal information about health need to be educated about privacy and information security issues to which they are exposed when using these devices.