There are hundreds of apps for phones, tablets, watches and wearables that have the ability to track steps, calories, workouts and other personal health data. Even though you can see all of that data in the app, how can you export it so you can analyze it on your own? That’s the question some health app users are finding tough to answer.
To solve the problem, these consumers are calling for device makers to make it easier to export, analyze and delete their personal data whenever they want to, according to BuzzFeed. Top fitness-tracking services, like Google Fit, don’t make this process easy, if at all, because it’s not something the common user requests. The general user is usually only concerned about seeing their data in an easy to read space while only a handful of serious users want the option to export their data.
Because of this problem, a few programmers built their own data-extracting methods for these fitness apps and are members of the Quantified Self movement. Those involved with this movement, “use self-tracking technologies to improve well-being, and part of a broader campaign to free our health data from institutions that have been historically slow to share it, be it reasons technical, legal, or financial,” according to BuzzFeed.
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Regina Holliday told BuzzFeed, “The Quantified Self movement is fighting the same battles that patient advocates are. The idea is that all the data needs to be shared and needs to be able to follow the patient and be used in conjunction with each other.”
Some apps, like Apple Health, allow the user to export their data, but the format is lengthy and confusing and restricted to an XML file, making it challenging for non-coders, a.k.a. the typical consumer, to input and understand in an excel file.
Programmers at Open mHealth and Quantified Self Labs developed an application that extracts health data from iPhones in a way that’s easy to understand by the general user. Open mHealth is a nonprofit that standardizes health data through open-source code, and Quantified Self Labs organizes conferences for the Quantified Self.
The programmers’ app, Hipbone, released by Open mHealth in May, automatically converts users’ data into something more understandable and uploads it to Dropbox.
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Even though programmers are working on data exportation and other companies like Misfit Wearables, MyFitnessPal, Apple Health and IFTTT (If This Then That) can export to third party spreadsheets, new programmers haven’t focused at all on the ability to delete information completely.
Some companies like Fitbit, Jawbone and Misfit allow for users to delete their data, but if something like a buyout or acquisition were to happen, the companies can also share the user’s data.
Open mHealth’s executive director David Haddad told BuzzFeed News, “What the patients are doing is owning their data in a way that they have access to it at any time they want, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. They can sit on reams of it and not do anything. Or they can take it and actually build something useful, or pay someone else to dump it into a service that’d be useful for them.”
Photo: Flickr user Burt Lum
Featured Photo: Flickr user Infocux Technologies
