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Article One: Rowland, Christopher. “With Fitness Trackers in the Workplace, Bosses Can Monitor Your Every Step —and Possibly More.”
Main claim: Employees and the public generally are unaware of the many privacy concerns related to health surveillance or the deleterious effects surveillance could have on employees.
Reason #1: Employees are not always aware of the privacy issues at play in health surveillance. Rowland notes: “Often the information is not covered by federal rules that protect health records from disclosure. And when it’s combined with data such as credit scores, employees are giving up more insights about themselves than they realize”.
Reason #2: Data collected can be used to discriminate. Rowland notes: “… privacy and workforce specialists warn the data could be abused to favor the healthiest employees while punishing or stigmatizing those who are less healthy…”.
Reason #3: Data collected is poorly regulated. Rowland writes: “Many consumers are under the mistaken belief that all health data they share is required by law to be kept private under a federal law called HIPPA… But is an employee voluntarily gives health date ton an employer … those restrictions on disclosures don’t apply…”.
Counterargument: It is implied throughout that individuals may experience real benefits.
Article Two: Chisholm, Donna. “Are FitBits a Boon for Your Health –or a Threat to Your Privacy?”
Main claim: Chisholm argues that although the technology sounds good in theory, how people use these devices is complicated as is the technology itself.
Reason #1: “Many devices also fail to measure “invisible labour”, and this seemed to particularly apply to women –for example, because of the way steps are counted, using algorithms that include arm movement, trips around the supermarket pushing a trolley or walking the baby in a pram often aren’t detected.”
Reason #2: “But the problem remains that those who need the devices the most aren’t the ones who are using them. Without other incentives, a third of wearers abandon their trackers within six months.”
Reason #3: “He’s also worried about privacy issues, the extent of the surveillance of data and its potential use by insurance companies.”
Counterargument: Incorporates “pros” of using wearable data collection devices but counters most of them.
Article Three: Wischhover, Cheryl. “Life Insurance Company John Hancock Wants to Track Your Fitbit Data.”
Main claim: Wischhover claims life insurance companies are creating incentive programs for insurers to use health surveillance technologies like Fitbit because they can increase profit over time by increasing the life expectancy of the insured. She is critical of this because it may adversely affect people who do not want their health monitored or are not very healthy.
Reason #1: “There’s thus far no evidence that the company will raise your rates if you don’t exercise enough, but it’s a reasonable fear at this point.”
Reason #2: “The potential problem with all of these things is that an increasingly wide swarth of people and corporate entities will have access to your most personal data.”
Reason #3: “The insurance companies can use this data to potentially weed out bad health-risk customers.”
Counterargument: The possibility that people using technology like Fitbit will be healthier and live longer is present in the piece, but not explored well.
Article Four: O’Carroll, Eoin. “Can Your Boss Make You Wear a Fitbit?”
Main claim: O’Carroll claims that if a job depends on complying with health surveillance policies wearing tracking devices like Fitbit is not meaningfully voluntary.
Reason #1: Although employees can sometimes opt-out of health surveillance programs there is often a monetary penalty.
Reason #2: Information gathered may be used to make hiring, firing, and promotion decisions.
Counterargument: none addressed
Article Five: Manokha, Ivan. “Why the Rise of Wearable Tech to Monitor Employees Is Worrying.”
Main claim: Manokha suggests health surveillance by employers should be banned.
Reason #1: Manokha suggests health surveillance should be banned because it will lead to health-based discrimination in the workplace. He writes: “The right to equal employment opportunities and promotion may also be compromised if employers reserve promotion for those who are in a better physical shape of suffer less from fatigue and stress.”
Reason #2: Manokha suggests health surveillance leads to an extreme form of labor commodification. He cites historian Karl Polanyi. Following Polanyi, Manokha writes: “Monitoring worker health both inside and outside the workplace involves the treatment of people as machines whose performance is to be maximized at all costs.” People are no longer treated as people but a means to profit for employers.
Counterargument: Although the author, Manokha, is critical of wearable personal data collection devices, he incorporates many perspectives. One example is Chris Brauer, a professor at University of London who suggests employees will be better able to manage the workforce with health information readily available. The author summarizing Brauer’s opinion writes: “[Employees] will be able to pick only the fittest employees for important business meetings, presentations, or negotiations”. Manokha begins by summarizing Brauer’s position and spends the remainder of the article countering it.
