Privacy Concerns of Overweight Adults to use Wearable Devices for Sustained Health Monitoring

Abstract

The market for wearable devices that can be used for sustained health monitoring purposes is continuously growing within the healthcare sec- tor. However, to function effectively, these devices must collect a large amount of data from the users. There are privacy concerns that may inhibit the behavioural intention of overweight adult to use wearable de- vices for health monitoring in the long term. This study examined the privacy factors influencing the behavioural intention of overweight adult to make use of wearable devices of sustained health monitoring. The study made use of a qualitative research approach with an inter- view design. A purposive sampling technique was used to select and interview twenty overweight adults (aged 18-59 years) who are using wearable devices in East London, South Africa. The Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM) framework was adopted as the underlying re- search theory in this study. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data provided by participants. The results found that there were 4 levels of privacy concerns among users. Some users were very concerned that their data was collected by the device manufacturing, while others had not concern at all. Some users had privacy concerns, but did not think that the data collected would be useful to a third party and finally some users did have privacy concerns, but indicated that the benefit of using a wearable device outweighed their concerns and they would continue to use the device. The recommendation of the study is that users must educate themselves about what data is collected and how it will be used by third parties.