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Fitbit: employer penalties for not using.

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  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Well, there's a huge difference between knowing if you walk a lot and knowing every time you have sex, with whom, and what specifically you did.

    People have been blackmailed over one of those things but not the other.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Well, there's a huge difference between knowing if you walk a lot and knowing every time you have sex, with whom, and what specifically you did.

    People have been blackmailed over one of those things but not the other.

    Right - plus, Fitbit and other trackers make it easy to measure one thing. But to ask me to obtain information about everyone I have sex with?! And then you have to define "sex" to understand what that means. And then there is the other factor, which is how comfortable people will be with even providing that information. Depending on how you define "sex," sometimes it is actually safer NOT to exchange full names.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Well, there's a huge difference between knowing if you walk a lot and knowing every time you have sex, with whom, and what specifically you did.

    People have been blackmailed over one of those things but not the other.

    well, kind of exactly. i'm wondering what lies behind the difference. how come one is blackmail-worthy and the other isn't. it's about collective social values, isn't it? i don't think i'm on the winning edge of this shift, but i do think that this represents a concrete attitude shift. people are comfortable these days with a whole different pattern of data distribution, compared with even ten years ago.

    last night it occurred to me i don't even know if it's possible to have a fitbit and keep whatever it generates strictly local. i don't own one, but i'm betting that their default settings take it for granted you won't.
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
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    Fact of the matter is if you leave a digital footprint, someone, if they really want to can get a *kitten* ton of data on you.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    canadianlbs wrote: »
    last night it occurred to me i don't even know if it's possible to have a fitbit and keep whatever it generates strictly local. i don't own one, but i'm betting that their default settings take it for granted you won't.

    It is, but the Fitbit will be less valuable as a tool this way.

    A Fitbit doesn't have internet access, but it has the capability to talk to your phone, and to reach the internet through your phone. You could buy a Fitbit, never pair it with your phone, and the data it collects on you will never leave the device. That means you'll have to use its screen to check your numbers, and if any kind of trending is important to you, you'll have to use a paper and pencil or an Excel sheet and do it yourself.

    Fitbits are fairly limited in what they'll collect. I'm a cyclist, so things like power are more important to me than how much I walked. I have a Garmin watch instead of a Fitbit. My watch also keeps tabs on how much I walk, though, because (as you can see) that data is becoming important to people, and it's very cheap to collect. Anyway, my Garmin has similar automatic features where it will use my phone or a wifi network to send my exercise data to the cloud on my behalf, if I let it. It also makes the data available over USB so I can analyze it locally if I choose to.

    I had a Mio Fuse for a while which was an HRM and an activity tracker. It had no way to send its activity tracking data anywhere. It stayed local to the unit because there was no infrastructure for it to go anywhere else; this is a huge reason it was not successful as an activity tracker.

    Here's an example of the type of data my Garmin collects.

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1416278990
    https://www.relive.cc/view/754255304
  • Sarahb29
    Sarahb29 Posts: 952 Member
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    snowflake930 wrote: »
    My employer purchased fitbits for all of the office employees about a year and a half ago. At the time, I already had had a fitbit for 2 years. It was not tied to any discounts on insurance premiums, but we did have fun incentive competitions with in the office. That has pretty much gone away now, and most of my co-workers no longer use their fitbits. We do have an annual health screening coming up in November. If we pass 5 bio markers, we do receive discounted health insurance premiums. When we began the annual health screening in Oct 2011, I was morbidly obese. Failed all but one of my biomarkers (cholesterol, thankfully good genes). March 2012 found MFP. Feb 2013 got a fitbit. For the past 2 health screenings. Passed all 5 bio markers. Still have my fitbit. Still use it everyday. It is the greatest motivator I have to get me moving more. Thanks to MFP & Fitbit, I am approaching my 3rd anniversary of maintenance. Love my Charge HR.

    I don't think step tracking devices should be tied to health insurance premiums. Health care costs are out of control, but this will not fix it. Obama Care did not fix it. Corporate greed. Big business as usual.

    That sounds like a nightmare. Everyone and their mom would be tying their fitbit to their dogs and just letting them loose for the day, lol.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »

    It is, but the Fitbit will be less valuable as a tool this way.

    A Fitbit doesn't have internet access, but it has the capability to talk to your phone, and to reach the internet through your phone.

    ah, okay. that's kind of what i figured. sounds like there's only one meaningful front-end and it's the one that they host.

    so my perspective - just as a realist who has no expectation of such a thing happening - is that in my world, an ethical, genuinely non-invested thing for them to do would be to ask you where you want the data to be stored/processed/presented to you. on the purely technical level, it doesn't have to go out there to their giant data hive, it doesn't have to be viewed through the web. i thought there might be just a slim chance you could also set up some kind of sync-to-your-local-pc thing, and they'd provide some locally-installable gui for looking at it. but seems like they're not interested in providing utility in that mode, if i'm understanding it right. it isn't a monster surprise.

    i'm unimpressed with most companies that give you something and say 'this is useful - but only if you use it our way' and then that way forces you into the para-public domain. at the very least i kind of stop and ask myself if the 'usefulness' really makes that exposure and that kind of monopoly worthwhile to me. and most of the time it doesn't, and this is a great example of it. a fitbit sounds to me like it's not conceptually much different from an electronic bracelet - same format, just different inputs and usage/presentation parameters. and you basically have to 'wear' it in public.

    i can see that social notions of privacy have been turning themselves inside out for the last decade or so, and this definitely fits in with that. it's pretty strange - western culture has been so much about individuality and privacy and the idea of having a wall that your personal life happens behind, and all that. but i bet in another five years someone like me will be listed in the dsm as a 'technical agoraphobe'.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    @canadianlbs

    Please keep in mind that when Fitbit and other companies set up a server farm and a front end with reports and whatnot, that takes a lot of work. Designers and programmers and testers and technical writers can spend months or years building a system like the ones we're talking about.

    Now, these things require web servers, which most people don't have at home. When you program a web application you tie it to a specific web server. Also, I'll go out on a limb and bet Fitbit's software requires a database server on the backend, which, again, most people don't have at home.

    So you can't just copy the software from Fitbit.com and run it at home if you don't want to run your data through their software.

    Fitbit could spend millions of dollars building a second UI for people who don't want to do things the same way as everybody else. And then who knows how much more supporting it? I wouldn't if I were in their shoes, it's just not useful or worth the effort.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Fitbit could spend millions of dollars building a second UI for people who don't want to do things the same way as everybody else. And then who knows how much more supporting it? I wouldn't if I were in their shoes, it's just not useful or worth the effort.

    sure, i already said i know it's not going to happen. i'm one of those software people myself and i don't think you'll ever convince me that's because it's not doable. it's because there's no material incentive for them to do it, that's all. you're right that people don't like to work on that stuff. it feels like being stuck in the broom closet while the cool kids get to do all the cool stuff. but in niches where the market requires it, it's done and it's recognized as a requirement of doing business in that particular niche. so it comes down to what people accept and what people demand. this isn't an area where it's in demand, and i think i've made it clear all along that i'm well aware of the fact.

    it just occurred to me while i was in the shower that i've lived long enough to see knitting get trendy again :D oh yeah, and marriage. so probably if i just wait till about 70, privacy and autonomy will come back into fashion as well.


  • Barbs2222
    Barbs2222 Posts: 433 Member
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    Fitbit doesn't work with older devices. Is your employer buying you a new cell phone too?
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    canadianlbs wrote: »
    sure, i already said i know it's not going to happen. i'm one of those software people myself and i don't think you'll ever convince me that's because it's not doable. it's because there's no material incentive for them to do it, that's all.

    Well, there's a difference between "doable" and "worth doing." You're asking why a company built a software platform using the most appropriate technology instead of using Popsicles and bubble gum. The mail could be delivered with bicycles instead of with cars and trains, just like the software could run on desktops instead of servers; in both cases it would be doable, but terribly inefficient, and the wrong choice. It's not that people hate privacy and bikes, or make these decisions out of spite.
  • Mary_Anastasia
    Mary_Anastasia Posts: 267 Member
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    Oo, I wish my work would give us incentives. We can't have any electronics in the office, no fitbit, no cellphone, no fancy digital watches or radios or anything. I would love to be able to use a fitbit while at work.
  • Tabbycat00
    Tabbycat00 Posts: 146 Member
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    I understand why employers offer such programs but it still isn't exactly fair. My employer offered an insensitive program for weight loss for years...I weigh under 100 lbs. Finally, this year they changed it to a "healthy living" program where I can participate just by making better choices and even getting a flu shot.
  • pebble4321
    pebble4321 Posts: 1,132 Member
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    canadianlbs wrote: »
    CipherZero wrote: »
    I would start looking for a new job if my employer thinks they can micro-manage my life like this.

    this. i live in canada where things are actually (please groke) fairly different from the states. i've also been privileged to have worked for 20 years without being 'an employee' for more than five - the last time was 15 years ago apart from a very short-lived aberration this year. so i guess my perspective is a bit different. i frequently find myself really bemused about which personal rights and freedoms americans cling to, and which ones they don't seem to care about in the least.

    it's not so much the penalty thing, to me. it just sort of staggers me how people could be okay about this. how can that be okay? to me, when i sign a work contract i agree to sell them a predefined chunk of my time every week. and that's it. i'm an adult and an individual citizen. they don't buy my life, my beliefs, my social time, my personal info, my politics, or anything else. outside of their walls and things they actually need in order for me to fulfill my statement of work, nothing about me is any business of theirs. i can't get my head around how it could be okay for a corporation to follow you home and keep tabs how many hours you're asleep.

    Heh, you would hate my husband's situation! He works in a remote area 2 hours flying time from home, and is away for four weeks at a time. While he is onsite, they pretty well own him. They determine what and when he eats (he get lots of choices, but there is nowhere else to eat), how many alcoholic drinks he can have a day, what time he gets out of bed in the morning (well, what time the bus leaves for work which is pretty much the same thing), when he is allowed to look at his mobile phone, who he socialises with, whether he is allowed to leave the site for his one day off each fortnight..... etc.
    But they pay good money which is why he and just about everyone else there does it. They have bought four out of every five weeks of his life and they take control of most aspects of it. They don't have them tagged with fitbits (I doubt you'd be allowed to wear them on site) but they may as well, their swipe card must track all kinds of stuff about them.

    Our health system in Australia is very different to the US, as health care and health insurance are separated from work (I don't think anywhere is like the US, thank goodness!) but I have noticed an increase in advertising for health funds providing fitness trackers or apps, and I'm pretty sure they must be tracking data and making use of that for some purpose. I haven't gone down that path as I'm a bit wary of my insurance company knowing more about me than I choose to disclose so unless I'm sure what they would do with that data, I'm not giving them access to it.
  • SingRunTing
    SingRunTing Posts: 2,604 Member
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    My employer has a healthy incentives program which does include fitbit. But it's very diverse. You can choose what you do and certain activities earn you different amounts of points. When you hit a certain number of points, you earn the incentive.

    Activities include (but not limited to) - step counting (syncing your fitbit), tracking your diet, options for any type of exercise, losing x% of weight, having your annual physical, taking stress management courses (offered for free), and even child birth classes for those folks who are pregnant. Since I'm pregnant, I can actually earn all my points this year between the child birth classes and my annual physical, which is very helpful since I can't lose weight and I'm on exercise restrictions. So even basically disabled, I can qualify.

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