Resisting Surveillance: Responding to Wearable Device Privacy Policies

This pilot study considers risk in association with wearable devices by placing body-monitoring in conversation with privacy policies (i.e. who is controlling your data, by what means, and to what end). This article focuses on the increasingly commonplace embodied technology that is both pervasive and invasive to individuals’ privacy as determined through the device users’ interpretation of corporate privacy policies. The primary focus is on the underexplored intersection of undergraduate students, wearable technology, and privacy, which ultimately advocates for transparency in corporate privacy policies. In this pilot study, it was found that users who read through the privacy policies of Fitbit and Google are more likely to change their passwords and emails, pay more attention to legal jargon, and may be less likely to link all of their applications through Google.