Health apps: Are we sharing too much?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The digital health market is growing rapidly - in 2021 the sector was valued at 195 billion US dollars.

Companies offer apps and devices to monitor our vital statistics, our activity, our nutrition, our hormones. And those apps collect a lot of data about us.

Presenter Marie Keyworth visits Web Summit, a large tech conference in Lisbon, to find out what is happening to this information.

And asks how consumers can get the most out of health apps whilst feeling comfortable about data privacy...

Plus Marie explores the aftermath of the Roe v Wade ruling which raised concerns that law enforcement officials could subpoena abortion-related data from data companies and women's health apps, to use in a prosecution.

Eirini Rapti, the founder of the menstrual cycle tracking app Inne tells Marie how her company responded to Roe v Wade, and the impact it might have on international growth.

Russell Glass, the CEO of Headspace Health which started as a mindfulness app, says they follow robust privacy and security rules, but a lot of the burden is falling on the consumer too because regulation can't always keep up.

Presenter and producer: Marie Keyworth

(Image: Woman using mobile phone. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Namulantakombo here with some exciting news.
0:04.1	My award-winning podcast, Dear Daughter, is back for a second season.
0:08.9	We're bringing you more moving personal stories and more letters of advice from people all around the world.
0:15.4	For Daughters everywhere.
0:17.7	That's Dear Daughter from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:26.6	Hello and welcome to Business Daily. I'm Marie Keyworth and today's episode is all about how health
0:33.3	tech companies are treating your data. The digital health market has grown massively in the last decade.
0:40.3	The whole sector was worth more than $195 billion in 2021.
0:45.3	And now all sorts of companies offer apps and devices to monitor our vital statistics, our activity, and nutrition, our hormones. And health tech lets us consult
0:56.3	with doctors and therapists online. It collects and processes a mountain of data about our bodies
1:02.5	and even our minds. All this means that our health and other related personal information
1:09.2	is no longer just held in the files at the doctor's
1:12.2	surgery or hospital. It's now in the hands of the technology companies too. So while the health
1:18.7	rewards of technology can be great, what are the risks to our data? When monetisation is so closely
1:24.9	linked with data and you're a new company and you're trying
1:27.8	to fundraise, you don't close that door.
1:30.9	And how can you, the consumer, get the most out of health apps while feeling comfortable
1:35.6	about data privacy?
1:36.8	We're at a moment in time where I believe consumers should be careful.
1:41.0	They should make sure that the apps they're downloading are treating data like
1:46.2	they should be treating data. That's all here on Business Daily from the BBC.
1:52.7	Here's the thing about practicing medicine. Or at least, here's what's true for me. I wasn't satisfied just helping the patients in front of me.
	...

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