A recent study from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse states that mobile apps designed to monitor health and fitness may have significant problems with ensuring privacy for the users.
The study examined 43 health and fitness apps, including those supporting diet and exercise programs, pregnancy trackers and chronic disease and condition managers, may not fully and accurately describe their privacy policies and risks to users.
According to the study, free apps present a particularly high privacy risk compared to paid apps due to the fact the free apps rely on advertising, which could make data from users available to third parties.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse recommended that users use paid apps over free apps if there are better privacy protections, try out features in the free version without entering information before purchase and completely delete the app and any personal profiles created if you no longer want the app.
The organization also recommended that mobile app developers implement strong privacy and security practices in order to protect consumers.
