Thanks to the coronavirus, thermometers are a must have these days. Kinsa's smart thermometers take your temperature like a regular thermometer--there's one that does it in the ear and another the oral, under arm, anal way. What makes these thermometers interesting is that they connect to Kinsa's app via Bluetooth and give you personalized guidance based on your symptoms. They also take the health data they collect from the over two million thermometers in use and anonymously aggregate this date to see where illness outbreaks are happening down to a county or zip code level in the United States. You can even access this information at their site healthweather.us. This might worry some privacy experts, while making many public health experts working to battle illness outbreaks happy.
O que pode acontecer se algo der errado?
Kinsa seems to do a pretty good job with privacy and security. They say they won’t sell your personal information, which is good. They may de-identify and aggregate your personal information to create "Illness Signals" to help inform where and when illness is spreading. According to a 2018 NY Times article, they can use this de-identified data to target ads to an area based on illness outbreaks, or as they state in their privacy policy, “Help companies direct their marketing to sicker areas.” That sounds creepier than it probably actually is...we hope.
And de-identifying personal data is generally an OK practice and can help better public health, although many privacy researchers will point out it can be relatively easy to de-anonymize such data. If you’re looking for a smart thermometer that doesn’t share this sort of aggregated data, the Withings Thermo currently doesn't share health data to help determine public health outbreaks in an area.
What's the worst that could happen? You could record your symptoms in the app. Kinsa sees that you and seventeen others like you in your county have the same symptoms, alert public health officials to a potential outbreak of illness, and public health officials step in to stop further spread of the illness. That doesn't sound too bad in the age of coronavirus.
Dicas para se proteger
- 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.
Pode me bisbilhotar?
Câmera
Dispositivo: Não
Aplicativo: Não
Microfone
Dispositivo: Não
Aplicativo: Não
Rastreia localização
Dispositivo: Não
Aplicativo: Sim
O que pode ser usado para se inscrever?
Sim
Celular
Não
Conta de terceiros
Não
Signup is not required to use the Kinsa thermometer. Signup with email address is required to use the Kinsa app's full features.
Que dados a empresa coleta?
Pessoal
Name, email, birthdate, gender, location
Relacionado ao corpo
Temperature, symptoms, diagnosis
Social
Como a empresa usa esses dados?
Como você pode controlar seus dados?
Qual é o histórico conhecido da empresa na proteção de dados dos usuários?
No known incidents in the last 3 years.
Este produto pode ser usado offline?
Informações de privacidade fáceis de entender?
Links para informações de privacidade
Este produto atende aos nossos padrões mínimos de segurança?
Criptografia
Senha forte
Atualizações de segurança
Gerencia vulnerabilidades
Política de privacidade
O produto usa inteligência artificial?
Esta inteligência artificial não é confiável?
Que tipo de decisões a inteligência artificial faz sobre você ou por você?
A empresa é transparente sobre como funciona a inteligência artificial?
O usuário tem controle sobre os recursos da inteligência artificial?
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