The Consumer's View on Security and Privacy of Health Wearables

Abstract

This study investigates the health wearable market, in particular, consumer attitudes towards security and privacy of their data and the factors that might cause them to modify their attitudes. It is clear that security of health wearables and implantables has room for improvement. However, security is not one of consumers’ top purchasing criteria at the moment. A case study on the advertisement of security in the personal computers industry revealed that a large scale hack affecting thousands of users has the potential to increase consumers concern about security sufficiently to make it a purchasing criteria. Furthermore, a survey of 301 American adults revealed factors that could modify consumer’s attitudes towards security. First, consumers are significantly more concerned about medical history and diagnostic data than they are about biometric data. Once a wearable contains medical history data, security becomes a top purchasing criteria. Second, Consumer’s concern levels are affected by the distribution channel, as they trust devices prescribed by a doctor to be more secure. The nuancing of consumer attitudes towards security and privacy of health wearables has the potential to impact health companies advertising techniques, value proposition models, and design process to focus on security more. It furthermore suggests that the speed of improvement of security may increase once devices that store medical history and diagnostic data come to market.