The impact of smart wearables on the decisional autonomy of vulnerable persons

Abstract

Smart wearable technologies have seen an explosive growth over recent years, with some research indicating that the wearable technology industry is expected to grow from USD 24 billion today to over USD 70 billion in 2025. This proliferation has extended across disparate domains, ranging from medical applications and fitness and social technologies to military, industrial, and manufacturing applications. As with any emergent techno logy, these wearables present opportunities for our moral benefit as well as moral challenges to be addressed. A crucial dimension of this discussion is the ethical evaluation of the impact of smart wearables on the autonomy of human decision-making. Nowhere is this a more pertinent concern than when dealing with persons uniquely vulnerable to autonomy infrin gement. This contribution, undertaken from an explicitly normative and ethical perspective, investigates the potential impact of smart wearables on various dimensions of the decisional autonomy of vulnerable persons.

Understanding Fitness Tracker Users’ and Non-Users’ Requirements for Interactive and Transparent Privacy Information

“…For many, daily health activity tracking using ftness trackers is standard practice and is even gaining traction in professional health contexts. Large amounts of sensitive data are collected while the user's main attention is on an activity detached from the active operation of a computer, making data collection less salient to the user and, hence, less of a user focus [8]. However, like many data-collection technologies, ftness trackers -considered wrist-worn wearable devices collecting ftness data accessible via original vendor apps (e.g., Garmin, Apple, or Fitbit) -require users' consent for acquiring, storing, converting, or sharing data.…”