Health Data at Your Fingertips: Federal Regulatory Proposals for Consumer-Generated Mobile Health Data
Are you male or female? When were you born? How tall are you? How much do you weigh? You may have encountered these questions when signing up with a fitness mobile application (app) like MyFitnessPal.1 After you quickly provide this personal information, and consent to the app’s privacy terms and cross-border data transfer policy, the app would be able to track, store, and analyze your diet, steps, exercise, and other daily activities to help you lose weight and promote a healthy lifestyle.
When you search terms such as “health,” “fitness,” “wellness,” and “diagnosis” in the App Store or Google Play Store, hundreds of apps like MyFitnessPal will pop up—all making promises of better health. These apps target a variety of users such as consumers, doctors, and medical students.
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Jianyan Fang
LL.M. graduate, Harvard Law School.