BBC News reports on a new pledge from health insurer Vitality after public backlash from its use of a Facebook-owned health fitness app. Moves, the “always on” smartphone app, measures users’ health-related activities and locations visited. Vitality said it promoted the app to encourage healthier lifestyles for workers, but privacy groups said the insurer should be more clear and transparent about how data is collected and accessed. One Internet privacy academic said this could serve as a lesson for the broader health insurance industry. Health data, he said, “can be used against (employees) in many ways—from obvious things like health and life insurance premiums to less direct things like credit ratings and even potential employment decisions.”
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