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Comment by feld | Hacker News Reader

It's a privacy invasion scam. At a previous employer they wanted to track our steps and our GPS location and also wanted us to record every glass of water we drink.

It's a disgusting ruse. I don't care if they were going to give me $300/yr, my privacy is worth more than that.

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Orthogonal issue but here is what I think -- While I agree that privacy is of great concern, I do think the way to approach this would be with more frequent health checkups. Our body is the best marker at the end of the day to measure our healthiness. Everything else doesn't matter, which is also the reason the allure of wearables is wearing out. (It's great, but what do you do now that you have all this data that you have gathered?)

Yeah but how? There aren't enough primary care doctors and the work is being farmed out to nurse practitioners and physician's assistants (and anyone who says the quality of care is just the same hasn't experienced it)

> There aren't enough primary care doctors and the work is being farmed out to nurse practitioners and physician's assistants

Thanks for the insight, but is there any empirical evidence here?

There is quite a bit and that this phenomenon is happening is not controversial. I turned this up quickly; you could probably find better sources with more careful research: http://kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/tapping-nurse-practition...

They also gave "points" in this reward system for recording visits to doctor, dentist, proving you had an annual physical, etc.

I'm sorry but while it's great to encourage that behavior it's not my employer's not my insurance company's business to know these details about my healthcare.

Agreed. In your case, it looks the ratio of info/value is really high. Honestly, this is the first time I have heard such an exploitation of personal health related data from an employer. Was this a large org? (Would understand if a small startup did this..perhaps lack of know-how. Still very alarming though.)

Yes, a large org; an electrical and gas utility company.

Oh man, that sucks to hear. I'm not sure if it's even legal for the employer to collect personal medical info (if you have a family covered under the insurance, potentially exposing theirs as well)...insurance companies might want that kinda info to determine the premiums. Do you know?

>not my insurance company's business to know these details about my healthcare.

What exactly do you imagine a health insurance company is? Dealing with the details of your healthcare is the entire reason it exists.

Well, it surely is a health insurer's 'business' to know about your health-related data. Whether you are willing to provide access, presumably for a better rate, is another question.

It is in their interest to snoop on your personal life and habits, but it's not their right

Would you expect someone to write you flood insurance on a house without knowing where that house is located?

Should car insurance companies treat a 16 year old with a WRX and a 45 year old with a Camry as equivalent?

It's really pretty bizarre that we expect people to underwrite our health without any insight into what risks we choose to take with it.

We chose the free market as our approach to health insurance, we could at least make it efficient. Right now a lot of healthy, fit people are paying through the nose to subsidize the privacy of those with sedentary lifestyles.

Does your car insurance company require you to install a GPS tracker in your car so they can keep track of everywhere you go? Because that would be much more analogous to what the parent describes.

No, but many of them give you a discount for installing an accelerometer/gps speed sensor.

Aren't auto insurance (your choice of provider) and employer provided health insurance (no choice) tangential things?

Are they?

Edit: Even if you decide not to opt-out of employer provided coverage, you don't have to participate in the wellness program, just as you don't have to participate in the gps tracking.

Personally my concern (with both things) is that they are going to normalize it so that it's first an option with an incentive, then it's the default and you have to opt out and pay some sort of penalty for doing so, and then before you know it there is no choice at all.

Insurers these days offer a discount for safe driving based on a device in the OBD-II port, yes. There are also some nontraditional insurance companies that charge per mile based on such a device.

Some offer them; I do not choose to use one.

Just as you can choose not to participate in a wellness program.

My employer isn't trying to cram the GPS system down my throat

Agreed. The state of my health is between me, my doctor, and maybe my fiancee. AND NO ONE ELSE. Certainly not my employer, or anyone connected to them.

They may claim they protect the privacy of your information, but recent history has shown that those claims generally aren't worth the electrons they're written with. There will be leaks, and hacks, and all manner of subterfuge.

With population analytics, it needn't invade your privacy at all. Companies are risk pools. Wellness companies don't need the private data and, worse, requiring it means less useful data (e.g., substances, mental health, etc). There's room here for innovation on privacy and population risk assessments.

Your employer does not have access to this data. They buy the wellness site from other companies. These companies are not allowed to provide them with data such as gps location.

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