British AI chatbot and virtual care company Babylon is used to getting shade from the public and the medical community alike. But recently it went a step further to strike back at one of its most prominent critics.
For years, a Twitter user under the handle of @DrMurphy11 has posted his encounters with Babylon's tool based on hypothetical situations. On the whole his tweets have been critical of...
This week, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation to strengthen privacy and security protections for consumers’ personal health data, specifically the data involved in DNA testing kits and health tracking apps.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Protecting Personal Health Data Act would require HHS to create standards to protect the sensitivity of genetic data,...
When it comes to privacy and data transparency, smoking cessation and depression apps fall short, according to a new study published in JAMA this morning. The study, which zeroed in on 36 apps, found that 33 of those apps transmitted data to a third party. However, 17 of those apps either “lacked a privacy policy, failed to disclose the transmission policy in text or said that the transmission...
After creating dummy accounts on highly-rated Android medical apps and analyzing their traffic, an investigation published Wednesday in BMJ found that nearly four in five shared users’ data with outside entities. What’s more, the Australian research team determined that several of those groups receiving the user information would likely be able to aggregate the data and use it to pinpoint a...
When Nike CEO Mark Parker announced on the company's earnings call in June that they were working on a major update to the Nike+ app, he said it was in beta testing and "so far we've received very positive feedback on its simplicity and tailored features." There may have been a flaw in the company's testing process: since the app's release last week, it's suffered an onslaught of complaints from...
