They don’t have your best interest at heart because they don’t have hearts

Fitbit, the leading wearable technology brand, recently launched a historic initiative.

Users can now choose to sync their accounts to help researchers unlock deeper insights into the relationships between health indicators such as physical activity, heart rate, sleep and health outcomes.

By consenting to sync their personal data, people now have the opportunity to contribute to one of the world’s largest precision medicine studies and help build one of the most diverse data sets for scientific research.

All they have to do is share all their health records, physical measurements, bio samples and test results.

What could possibly go wrong?

That last part is where the record scratches for me.

Do we really need to be that open with our personal information? Surrendering our most personal assets to another million dollar corporation?

Look, I’m all for helping doctors identify medical patterns for early intervention and improving my own health, while helping people who are suffering from similar health issues.

But this whole initiative sounds like the opening scene to one of those terrifyingly prescient science fiction movies.

Imagine the trailer:

After a leading wearables brand offers free health trackers to all citizens, their humanitarian effort takes a turn for the worse when cyberterrorists hack the personal data of millions.

I even have a theme song. Sting’s voice starts belting out:

Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.

Sends a chill up your spine, doesn’t it?

Jesus, imagine what the bad guys could do with all of your health information.

On an institutional level, revealing people’s health risks could result in skyrocketed insurance bills, leading to policy cancellations, plummeting credit scores and bankruptcy, wiping out millions of people’s financial standing in mere minutes.

On a military level, both on and off duty soldiers deployed in confidential locations would have their top secret coordinates revealed through fitness tracker heat maps, creating unintended security consequences that get their families kidnapped and decapitated by extremists.

On a local level, the cyberterrorists would then sell that data to mobsters who use it to bribe prominent political figures to pass dangerous, unethical laws, leading to organized crime controlling the city through violence and intimidation.

All because people want their free seventy dollar bracelet.

Well, we have officially lost track of our sanity.

Reminder, if you’re getting the service for free, you’re the product being sold.

The squeeze isn’t worth the juice.

Giant corporations don’t have your best interest at heart because they don’t have hearts.

These institutions are predicated on people being an inherent failure, so that way they can be a predictable success.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
In this world, where evil intrudes all over, can you be paranoid enough?