NordicTrack Treadmill

Warning: *privacy not included with this product

NordicTrack Treadmill

Icon
Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Review date: Nov. 8, 2021

|
|

Mozilla says

|
People voted: Somewhat creepy

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. That's what you get with these connected treadmills from NordicTrack. Climb on the road to nowhere, hop in one of the live, interactive training sessions you stream on the HD touchscreen right in front of you, and take off. The personal trainers can control your treadmill's incline, decline, and speed in real time so you have no choice but to sprint up that hill! Google Maps technology lets you run anywhere in the world. And you get tons of personalized stats to tell you how much harder you need to run to beat your buddy. Just the motivation you need to lose those extra few pounds.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

NordicTrack’s privacy policy is an exercise in awful. They say they can sell your data, they can call or text your phone number even if you’re on a do-not-call list, they may get data from data brokers and use it to know more about you to target you with lots of ads. It's so awful, in fact, the we made the decision to give NordicTrack our *Privacy Not Included warning label on it alone.

NordicTrack says they might sell your data. Not good. They also seem to collect and share a good amount of data on their users, including buying data from data brokers and gathering it from public sources. Also not good. They say they will use all the data they can collect on you to target you with advertising and marketing and make suggestions to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you. Eh, not good but also, kinda the way the world works these days. One final kick in the pants from NordicTrack’s privacy policy. They say, “By creating an account with us, you agree that we may contact you for marketing and transactional purposes by phone, e-mail, mail, or text message, even if your number is on a do-not-call list or is a wireless number.” Yikes!!!!

So, if you buy a NordicTrack exercise machine and sign up for their iFit app for workouts, expect your data to be collected, used to target you with all kinds of ads, your phone number is now fair game for marketing texts or phone calls from them, and your data is possibly being sold to third parties. You’re gonna need a good workout to help get rid of the stress of all that. Maybe go outside and take a run or bike offline though, that seems safer. Good news though, residents of California in the US can opt out of some of this data gathering and selling. Just California residents though, thanks to their privacy law called CCPA, no one else. Yay for strong privacy laws!

Tips to protect yourself

  • Be very careful what third party companies you consent to share you health data with. If you do decided to share your health data with another company, read their privacy policy to see how they protect, secure, and share or sell your data.
  • Once you do not use a device any more, make sure to request deletion of all your data
  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: No

App: No

Microphone

Device: No

App: No

Tracks location

Device: No

App: Yes

What can be used to sign up?

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

NordicTrack's parent company, ICON Health & Fitness, says they may sell your personal data, "We may also sell your personal data for certain of the business purposes listed above."

They may also share your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes including the delivery of targeted advertising.

They say they may send you text messages, phone calls, or emails for marketing purposes even if you number is on a Do-Not-Call list, "By creating an account with us, you agree that we may contact you for marketing and transactional purposes by phone, e-mail, mail, or text message, even if your number is on a do-not-call list or is a wireless number."

They may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources including data brokers or aggregators based inside or outside the US and publicly available sources based inside or outside the US.

They say they, "may use your identity, contact, technical, usage, and profile data to form a view on what we think you may want or need or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services, and offers may be relevant for you (known in the industry as marketing)."

They say even if you ask them to delete your data, "You may still receive promotional e-mails from us regarding new iFIT products or services."

How can you control your data?

Icon says they will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes they collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Retention details for different aspects of your personal data are set out. In some circumstances, you may ask to delete your data. If they delete your account, your user profile will no longer be visible, and all of the information associated with your account will be permanently deleted.

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Average

No known incidents in the last 3 years.

Can this product be used offline?

Yes

User-friendly privacy information?

No

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Yes

Encryption

Yes

Strong password

Yes

Security updates

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Yes

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

Yes

Is this AI untrustworthy?

Can’t Determine

What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?

NordicTrack provides recommendations on your workout.

Is the company transparent about how the AI works?

Can’t Determine

Does the user have control over the AI features?

Yes

*privacy not included

Comments

Got a comment? Let us hear it.